Suppose that you have been hired by the university administration to design a randomized experimental study to assess the following hypothesis among undergraduate students: Attending weekly yoga classes leads to better performance on exams.Be sure that your study design addresses the following elements:
- Refine the study hypothesis so that it is as specific as possible and contains all elements of a “good” hypothesis. Remember that the design, conduct, and analysis of the study flows from the hypothesis.
- How will you find and recruit participants?
- Are there any exclusion criteria that you would apply?
- How will you define the exposure of interest?
- How will you assign exposure? What will the unexposed condition be?
- How and how often will you collect information on exam performance?
- What steps will you take to maximize and assess compliance?
- What are the ethical concerns in this study?
- What other information would you like to know to design this study?
- Discuss how you would conduct the data analysis and design shell tables to describe the characteristics of the participants and the main study results.
Expert Solution Preview
Introduction: In this study, the hypothesis is that attending weekly yoga classes leads to better performance on exams. To design a randomized experimental study to assess this hypothesis, there are several factors that need to be considered, including the study’s hypothesis, participant recruitment, exposure definition and assignment, data collection, compliance, ethics, and data analysis.
Refined Hypothesis: Attending weekly yoga classes leads to higher scores on academic exams among undergraduate students when compared to those who do not attend yoga classes.
Participant Recruitment: Participants would be recruited through flyers posted throughout campus and announcements made in classes. Inclusion criteria would be undergraduate students who have no prior experience practicing yoga. Exclusion criteria would include those with medical conditions that could be aggravated by physical activity.
Exposure Definition and Assignment: The exposure of interest would be attending weekly yoga classes. Participants would be randomly assigned to either attend yoga classes or serve as a control group that does not attend yoga classes.
Data Collection: Exam performance would be measured by analyzing scores on mid-term and final exams for a particular course. Data on exam performance would be collected at the end of each term.
Compliance: To maximize compliance, participants would receive a schedule of yoga classes at the beginning of the study and be reminded of upcoming classes through email and in-person announcements. Compliance would be assessed through attendance records.
Ethical Concerns: Participants would need to provide informed consent before participating in the study. They would also have the right to withdraw from the study at any time. The study would need to ensure that participants are not harmed physically or psychologically.
Additional Information: It would be helpful to know the class schedules of participants, whether they are full-time or part-time students, and their course loads.
Data Analysis: Descriptive statistics would be used to provide summary data on participant characteristics and exam scores for the control and experimental groups. A t-test or ANOVA would be used to compare the mean exam scores between the control and experimental groups. Shell tables would be designed to summarize the key findings.
