PSYC 255 Week 2 DB Forum 2 Example

Discussion Board Forum 2: Thread and Two Replies

PSYC 255 Introduction to Research, Discussion Board Forum 2 (thread and two replies)

Thread by [Student Name]

The prompt, the writer's example and the classmates' posts are composites standing in for the course's own forum; the textbooks, Scripture and published article are real; the requirements follow Liberty's public course guide for PSYC 255.

Thread

Suppose a university wants to know whether its freshmen are lonely. Loneliness is a feeling, and feelings cannot be observed directly, so a researcher must decide what to count. Crawford (2019) calls this step operationalization: stating exactly how a concept will be measured in a particular study. The choice shapes everything that follows.

Here are three options. First, a single question: "How often do you feel lonely?" rated from never to always. It is quick and easy to understand, but one item may not be very reliable, and students may hesitate to admit loneliness so directly. A freshman who answers rarely in September might answer often in November simply because the question caught a bad day. Second, a validated multi-item loneliness scale with questions about feeling left out or lacking companionship. Multiple items usually improve reliability, and a published scale comes with evidence of validity. Third, a count of social contacts per week. It is objective, but it measures isolation rather than loneliness; a student with many contacts can still feel deeply alone, so this option may have poor construct validity for the question being asked.

The point is not that one measure is perfect, but that researchers must choose deliberately and report their choice openly. Flake and Fried (2020) argue that psychology suffers from a "measurement schmeasurement" attitude, in which undisclosed decisions about measures, such as dropping items or inventing scales without testing them, are common and threaten internal, external, statistical and construct validity alike. They propose questions researchers should answer transparently about every measure, such as what the construct is, why this instrument was chosen and whether it was modified. Those questions match what the APA manual asks a method section to describe.

Honesty about methods is also a moral matter. Scripture's concern with honest weights in Proverbs 11:1 applies here in a modern form (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016): a questionnaire is a measuring instrument too, and reporting it truthfully is part of integrity in research.

Classmates: which concept in psychology do you think is hardest to measure well?

Reply to Sophia

Sophia, you proposed measuring student stress before exams with heart rate from a fitness watch, because it is objective and avoids self-report bias. That is a creative choice, and heart rate is easy to record reliably. The question is validity. Heart rate rises with caffeine, exercise, excitement and anxiety alike, so a fast pulse does not necessarily mean a student is stressed. Flake and Fried (2020) would ask whether the measure has evidence that it captures the construct you care about. One solution would be to combine heart rate with a brief validated stress questionnaire and check whether the two move together. If they do, the physiological measure gains evidence of validity; if they do not, you learn something important about what each one captures. Would your design record when students had coffee or exercised?

Reply to Caleb

Caleb, you chose to operationalize spiritual maturity, and you admitted that every measure you tried felt inadequate. I think that discomfort is a sign you understand the problem. Behaviors such as church attendance or minutes spent in prayer are easy to count, but they may reflect habit or family expectations rather than inner growth. Crawford (2019) notes that operational definitions always capture only part of a concept. Perhaps the most honest approach is to name exactly which part you are measuring, such as frequency of private prayer, and avoid claiming more. Jesus warned against practicing righteousness to be seen by others (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016, Matthew 6:1), which suggests visible behavior may be a weak measure of faith. Interviews or open-ended questions might capture something a scale would miss. Would you consider a mixed design that combines both?

References

Crawford, R. (2019). Introduction to research: Less fright, more insight. Kendall Hunt.

English Standard Version Bible. (2016). Crossway. (Original work published 2001)

Flake, J. K., & Fried, E. I. (2020). Measurement schmeasurement: Questionable measurement practices and how to avoid them. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 3(4), 456-465. https://doi.org/10.1177/2515245920952393