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Read “Is Sponge Bob SquarePants Bad for Children” by Roni Caryn…
Read “Is Sponge Bob SquarePants Bad for Children” by Roni Caryn Rabin, available at:
https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/12/is-spongebob-squarepants-bad-for-children/?_r=0 (a popular press article that reports on the results of research originally published in a scientific journal by Lillard and Peterson (2011)).
Read “The Immediate Impact of Different Types of Television on Young Children’s Executive Function by Lillard and Peterson available at:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/pediatrics/early/2011/09/08/peds.2010-1919.full.pdf Answer the following questions based on the articles. You should not answer these questions in one long essay or narrative.
Identifying the claims:
What claim does the Rabin (2011) article indicate as being the central claim of the scientific study?
Paraphrase or quote information from the Rabin article to support your answer.
What variable(s) are part of this claim as reported in the Rabin article?
What type of claim (frequency, association, or causal) is this? Quote language from the article to support your answer.
What is the actual central claim of the Lillard and Peterson (2011) paper as indicated in the Lillard and Peterson paper? Paraphrase or quote information from the Lillard and Peterson article to support your answer.
What variables are part of this claim as reported in the Lilard and Peterson paper?
What type of claim (frequency, association, or causal) is this? Quote language from the article to support your answer.
Identify something about the Rabin article that may lead readers to have a distorted, exaggerated, or inaccurate understanding of the central claim being made by Lillard and Peterson’s original report of the research. To do this provide a quote from the Rabin article along with an explanation of why you think the quoted part of the article could lead to a distorted, exaggerated, or inaccurate understanding of the central claim being made.
Understanding journal article sections (base answers only on Lillard and Peterson (2011)):
The introduction section (the introduction section follows the abstract, but unlike other major sections is not typically blocked off with “Introduction” as a section heading) should provide a basis for the central claim (i.e., the hypothesis) of the paper by describing relevant prior research and or relevant theory. Summarize one research finding described in the introduction section that provides a basis for the central claim of the paper.
One part of a typical discussion section will point out the significance/importance of the research (see
p. 47 of your text for more on this). What is one point made in the discussion section regarding the significance/importance of the research?
Assessing Construct Validity:
What information does the Rabin article provide about how the independent variable was manipulated? In other words, what can you tell about the operational definition of the independent variable from the Rabin article?
Describe any additional details about the operational definition of the independent variable provided by Lillard and Peterson’s paper.
What information does the Rabin article provide about how the dependent variable was measured? In other words, what can you tell about the operational definition of the dependent variable from the Rabin article?
Describe any additional details about the operational definition of the dependent variable provided by Lillard and Peterson’s paper.
Do the details on operational definitions provided by Lillard and Peterson change your assessment of the quality of this research relative to if you had to base your assessment only on information provided by the Rabin article (you may focus on operational definitions of either the independent variable, the dependent variable or both)?
Assessing Statistical Validity:
Does the Rabin article say if any of the effects in the study were statistically significant?
Identify one effect reported in the Lillard and Peterson article that bears directly on the central claim of the article that was found to be statistically significant (P<.05)?
Does the Rabin article provide any statistics about how large Lillard and Peterson's effects were?
Look at Figure 1 in Lillard and Peterson's paper. What test of executive function showed the biggest effect of watching a fast-paced cartoon relative to drawing? About how big is this effect? To answer this, say how many standard deviations apart the z-score for the drawing group is from the z-score for the fast-paced television watching group. Hint: remember that z-scores tell you how many standard deviations a score is from the mean of all the scores.
Assessing Internal Validity:
Based on the Rabin article can you tell if Lillard and Peterson's study was an experiment? If not say what information is lacking that prevents you from being able to tell. If so, cite language from the text that indicates the study is an experiment.
Based on Lillard and Peterson's paper determine whether or not the study was an experiment and state what this determination is based on.
If somehow more children with pre-existing attention problems ended up watching the fast paced cartoon in the study this would be an example of a what?
What did Lillard and Peterson do in addition to random assignment to ensure that their results were not influenced by pre-existing attention problems?
Assessing External Validity:
Identify one external validity concern raised in the Rabin article.
Identify a separate external validity concern raised in the discussion section of Lillard and Peterson's article.
Often times, when a study's external validity is challenged it is to suggest that the results of a study would not hold if a different population were studied. Chose a population other than mostly white 4 year olds from middle- to upper-middle class families and make a case for why the results of the study would either hold true for this other population or for why the results would change if the study were repeated with this other population.
Basic or Applied Research: Would you consider the research describe in the two articles to be basic research of applied research?
Digging deeper: Identify a question or hypothesis that you think should be addressed as a next step in the process of trying to expand our understanding of how TV is related to executive function.
Identifying Flawed Thinking about Research: Read through the comments people have posted in response to the Rabin article. Identify a comment that shows at least one type of flawed or biased thinking about the study (examples of flawed or biased thinking would be drawing conclusions without a comparison group, failure to consider confounds, failure to understand that research is probabilistic, the availability heuristic, present/present bias, confirmation bias etc.). Say what type of flawed/biased thinking is illustrated in the comment by quoting relevant parts of the comment and explain how the type of flawed/biased thinking you have indicated is apparent in the comment.
Using Library Resources to find out more: Use EBSCOhost through Alden Library to find another scientific article on the issue of television and attention/concentration/executive function. Provide the reference for the article you find
