Question

People who live in underserved remote areas do not have adequate access to professional counseling services for alcohol abuse. Improvements in internet access and video conferencing technology may provide a means of delivering counseling services to underserved remote areas. The purpose of this study is to investigate the efficacy of a technology based delivery system for counseling services. The researchers designed a study with a sample of N = 40 participants who live in an underserved remote area and who have entered counseling for alcohol abuse. The participants will be randomly assigned to one of two groups, face-to-face counseling or video conference counseling. Both groups will use the same counseling model and will have the same number of sessions over a three month period. The difference between the groups will be how counseling services are delivered. Participants will complete the Alcohol Dependence Scale (ADS) at the end of treatment. The groups are considered equivalent at the beginning of the study based on random assignment to groups. The null hypothesis states there will be no difference in scores on the ADS between face-to-face counseling and video conference counseling. The researcher uses a between groups t-test to compare the post treatment scores of the ADS for the two groups.

The output from the analysis is below. The results are t(38) = 0.258, p = .798.

• What type of study design is used? Please explain.
• Does the study design accurately test the null hypothesis?
• Is the correct statistical test used to analyze the data? Why? Why not?
• Regardless of whether or not the correct statistical test was used, are the results statistically significant? Social science research uses a p value of .05 to determine statistical significance.
• Does the researcher reject or fail to reject the null hypothesis?
• What are the implications of the results for the study and the counseling field?​​​​​​​

Answer 1

A) THIS IS EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH DESIGN.

EXPLANATION: The participants will be randomly assigned to one of two TREATMENTS.

B) YES the study design accurately test the null hypothesis.

C) YES the correct statistical test used to analyze the data

EXPLANATION: GROUPS ARE INDEPENDENT AND SAMPLES ARE RANDOMLY SELECTED. POPULATION VARIANCES ARE UNKNOWN. So independent t test is correct option.

D) NO. Because P value=0.798 >0.05 therefore NOT SIGNIFICANT.

E) RESEARCHER FAIL TO REJECT THE NULL HYPOTHESIS . ( P VALUE>0.05)

F) The implications of the results for the study and the counseling field is that there is no difference between face-to-face counseling and video conference counseling. So Video conference counselling can be used for people who live in under served remote areas and do not have adequate access to professional counseling services for alcohol abuse.