Cause, effect, and causal relationship In order to describe research designs, I first need to define what is cause, effect, and causal relationship (Shadish, Cook, & Campbell, 2002). A cause is a factor that occurs a certain condition. An effect is understood through a counterfactual reasoning (Shadish, et al., 2002). An experiment generally involves a treatment group that receive an intervention and a control group that does not. The counterfactual reasoning is to compare what happened between the two groups. If there is any difference in outcomes between the treatment group and control group, the effect is evident. Finally, a causal relationship is to prove that the cause and effect are related. The cause must precede the effect. There should not be any confounding factors affecting the effect other than the cause. A simple correlation between the cause and the effect is not sufficient to demonstrate the causal relationship (Shadish, et al., 2002). A. Compare and contrast the distinguishing elements of each of these four designs. a. Experimental designs The key purpose of experimental designs is to test causal hypotheses. There are three requirements: introduction of an intervention (treatment), manipulation (control), and random assignment (Alferes, 2012; Levin, 1999; Shadish, et al., 2002). An intervention is presented to a treatment group. In order to evaluate its effect, a control group is assigned without an intervention. The treatment group and the control group are randomly assigned. One of the distinguishing elements of experimental designs compared to quasi- or non-experimental designs is the use of random assignment (Shadish, et al., 2002). For instance, a pre-posttest quasi-experimental design has a treatment grou... ... middle of paper ... ...s with longitudinal panel designs because both involve multiple observations on the same variable and the same subject over time. In regard to this issue, Deschenes (1990) highlights that a time series design contains more periodical intervals such as weekly, monthly, or yearly. Furthermore, Menard (2002) addresses that a time series design includes “relatively long time series for a single case at a time” (p. 67). Meanwhile, Shadish, et al. (2002) mentions although approximately 100 observations are preferable for causal inference in time-series designs, a small number of observations would also be useful if extra pre- or posttests or control groups are introduced. In addition, I agree with the notion that when a research interest includes patterns of change in a case rather than changes in an individual, a time-series design is more appropriate (Menard, 2002).
As the government became more involved with tracking these guns they began to run into trouble with people not registering their weapons that fit the guidelines of a firearm that needed to be registered. So the NFA realized that changes needed to be made and it stated that gun owners who already owned the weapon did not have to have it registered. Its main objective was to prohibit interstate traffic in firearms and ammunition, it also denied guns to specific classes of individuals such as felons, minors, fugitives, drug addicts and the mentally ill. Despite all these provisions the law was not one hundred percent effective when came down to the specifics, as criminals were still able to find a way to retrieve firearms. This leading to
Second Amendment sisters Inc., also known as SAS, is a women’s advocacy group dedicated to preserving the basic human right of self-defense as recognized by the Second Amendment. They believe in personal responsibility, education, and enforcement of laws against violent criminals. SAS was founded in 1999 by five women who got together on the internet in response to The Million Mom March, a rally on Mother’s day, may 14th 2000 designed to keep guns out of the hands of children and criminals through promotions of tighter restrictions. A counter rally by the pro-gun SAS was held the same day. The five ladies discovered they had something in common: they didn’t want the anti-gun rights Million Mom March to speak for them. For five months, along with but small dedicated groups of volunteers, using one of today’s most influential pieces of technology the internet.
A multiple-baseline design differs from a reversal design by attempting to control for confounds through the introduction of treatment at differing time intervals to a few different people, to the same person in different situations, or to the same person across different behaviors. Reversal designs attempt to control for confounds by reversing the baseline and treatment conditions one or more times to assess the impact on behavior (Jackson, 2012).
Although intimate partner violence has declined over the past 25 years in the United States (Dugan & Apel, 2003; Dugan, Rosenfeld, & Nagin, 2003), it is still a great social concern. In terms of homicide, a recent study reports that more than half of victims of intimate partner violence are killed with a firearm (Smith, Fowler, & Niolon, 2014). A variety of handgun restriction laws has been implemented to control intimate partner homicides with a handgun. Several studies have evaluated the effectiveness of the restriction laws, and revealed that the laws have a great deterrent impact on decreasing intimate pater homicides (Dugan, et al., 2003; Sorenson, 2006). Despite the overall decline, however, women and African-Americans remain at a higher risk. Some argue that the variation of the decline in intimate partner homicides is inconsistent across gender and race. For example, homicides against male victims and African-American victims have declined at a larger rate, whereas homicides against female victims and White victims have declined at a smaller rate (Dugan, et al., 2003; Wells & DeLeon-Granados, 2004). The current proposal suggests an impact evaluation of handgun restriction laws for intimate partner homicide in relation to gender and race. This will address the following four hypotheses.
Several factors can affect the actual results of an experiment. Among them are experimental and subject bias. Experimental bias concerns anything that misconstrues the experimenter's comprehension of the relationship between the dependent and independent variable (Feldman, 1999). Subject bias is the tendency of the subject to behave atypically. The double-blind procedure evades experimental and subject bias as the experimenter evaluates results unbiased as the experimenter is uninformed about whether the subject has received the actual treatment or the placebo and the subject will behave normally as they do not know if they have received the actual treatment or the pseudotreatment, the placebo. Therefore, the results and any distinctions among the control and experimental groups are clearly based on the independent variable and has to be the effect of the treatment. For example, in an experiment to evaluate a drug that encourages engagement in conversations, after administering the drugs to the experimental group and the placebo to the control group, the experimenters talk with participants and evaluate the conversation's degree of excellence which are not easy to assess. Thus, the experimenter might be biased and unintentionally give the participants in the experimental group better evaluations because they know that this group has been administered the real drug (Carlson & Buskit, 1997).
In order to have a successful, reliable experiment you need sufficient data and evidence, reliable research, variables to test and a follow – up experiment. There are several types of variables you need to do an experiment. An independent variable is the manipulated experimental factor that is changed to see what the effects are. A dependent variable is the outcome. This factor can change in an experiment in reaction to the changes in the independent variable. An experimental group is the group of participants that are exposed to the change that the independent variable represents. The control group is participants who are treated in the same way as the experimental group except for the manipulated factor which is the independent variable (King 24). Proper data, evidence and research is also needed so the experiment turns out correctly and you know what you are testing. A follow – up experiment is not required, however it helps the validity of the conclusion of the experiment. Validity is “the soundness of the conclusions that a researcher draws from an experiment” (King 25). Conducting a follow – up experiment will help researchers and people alike see if the experiment worked properly, continues to help people and see how participants are doing after the experiment is over.
Gun control is one of those topics that have not had much improvement on either side because both sides are completely against each other. On one side you have liberal gun control advocates who want to make laws to control who can purchase a fire arm, also a lot are trying to get rid of guns completely. On the other side you have conservative gun owners who feel like their “individual right to bear arms” (USA Today) will be taken away from them if laws were passed that would affect them from buying guns. The authors have made very good arguments about why their side is better and I will be talking about why we should not band but only “keep mentally ill people from buying guns” (USA Today).
“How many have to die before we will give up these dangerous toys?” (Stephen King). Firearms have been out of control over the past decade and has been the cause of most deaths in massacre shootings. The controversy about gun control has escalated throughout the years. Gun control laws will affect people for the better. I will be giving you a different understanding that has the potential to change the tone of the national debate. The government should pass gun laws because guns do not provide protection, they only harm people. Guns are harmful to society overall.
The US is among the various countries that are having problems with enacting laws that control guns. However, what the world fails to understand is that controlling guns does not end crime. Controlling crimes is the only sure manner and way of maintaining peace and order in various states across the US and the whole world. The various administrations have been trying to address the issue of mass shootings and illegal owning of firearms to no success. Controlling guns cannot thus end crime. The solution lies with putting an end to the crime itself first before checking on guns.
Gun control in the United states is a big issue. Firearms are involved in the deaths of more than 30,000 people each year, two thirds of which are suicides. But at the same time, many feel that the right to own a gun is sacred. Gun control laws should be stricter to reduce people with mental health from potentially killing, committing suicide, or having an accident where a miscommunication could end in tragedy.
Gun control is one of the most divisive issues in the United States. Every time there is a massacre, the arguments for and against inflame the national debate but without producing results. It is an ideological chasm separating the two camps. Some defend an eternal and intangible right, the others are alarmed at its social cost. For some, the responsibility is individual, and the State must be confined to a role of arbitrator while for the others it is collective and the State is entitled to put in place a preventive policy. In the chaos a lot of chatter also goes towards background checks as today they are considered one of the most basic and important parts of gun ownership. However,it is still a large looming dilemma in the fight
There are advantages to using RCT, firstly, there the effect of using randomization will “wash out” any population bias and it is easier to blind than observational studies (O'Brien, 2013). The results can be analyzed with reliable statistical tools and the participants can be clearly identified (O'Brien, 2013). The disadvantage of this method is that it is often expensive and time cons...
The United States today can be a scary place. Someone that is disgruntled, has a mental health issue, radicalized through terrorist propaganda or for any other reason can take up a firearm and mass murder innocent people. It can happen anywhere, anytime, anyplace. Anyone that pays attention to any news or newspapers has probably heard something about gun control. It’s a hot topic in this country and around the world. There are a lot of problems with gun control and regulating guns in the United States. Before you can talk about solutions you need to isolate the problems keeping the solutions from being realized. The people who are for and against guns do have common solutions but there is strong opposition
Planning or conducting a study requires research and a good design. “A good design, one in which the components work harmoniously together, promoting efficient and successful functioning; a flawed design leads to poor operation or failure” (Maxwell, 2013, p. 2). When conducting research, the research questions are the normal starting point. They are what drives the study and, therefore, the piece that controls the design which all other components must follow (Maxwell, 2013). With the research questions at the center of the design, unlike typical research models, the interactive model of research design is connected in such a way as to provide