Lin Article Critique
Lin Article Critique: Part II
Liberty University
February 15, 2012
Evaluating Research in Academic Journals by F.Pyrczak (2008) is used to critique the article, Effects of Forgiveness Therapy on Anger, Mood, and Vulnerability to substance Use among Inpatient Substance-Dependent Clients (2004), by Wei-Fen Lin, David Mack, Robert D. Enright, Dean Krahn, and Thomas W. Baskin.
Critique of Population & Sampling The population selected for this study was not randomly chosen. Forty-three psychiatrically challenged patients in a residential drug rehabilitation center were chosen for this study. “Researchers often study only samples for the sake of efficiency and then generalizes their results to the population of interest” (Pyrczak, 2008, p. 55). The sampling that took place began with forty patients, after three were eliminated from the study. The patients were randomly split into two treatment groups with only fourteen patients completing the study at its closure. It is this researcher’s opinion that random sampling was not used initially in the selection of forty patients from the residential drug rehabilitation center. However, when splitting the forty patients into two treatment groups, the clients were split randomly. This places twenty participants in each subgroup. Pyrczak (2008) suggests that number of participants can be so small that generalizing would be inappropriate. At the conclusion of the study caution was given to the small sample size provided, but it was noted that “the sample size was more than sufficient to detect meaningful statistical differences, a major goal of all treatment studies” (Lin et al., 2004). This indicates that a generalization was drawn from the target group of residential drug rehabilitation clients and was not drawn from a diverse source. Some participant dropped out of the study resulting in a 35% completion rate (Lin et al., 2004). This low rate does effect generalizing the findings of the study.
Liberty University
February 15, 2012
Evaluating Research in Academic Journals by F.Pyrczak (2008) is used to critique the article, Effects of Forgiveness Therapy on Anger, Mood, and Vulnerability to substance Use among Inpatient Substance-Dependent Clients (2004), by Wei-Fen Lin, David Mack, Robert D. Enright, Dean Krahn, and Thomas W. Baskin.
Critique of Population & Sampling The population selected for this study was not randomly chosen. Forty-three psychiatrically challenged patients in a residential drug rehabilitation center were chosen for this study. “Researchers often study only samples for the sake of efficiency and then generalizes their results to the population of interest” (Pyrczak, 2008, p. 55). The sampling that took place began with forty patients, after three were eliminated from the study. The patients were randomly split into two treatment groups with only fourteen patients completing the study at its closure. It is this researcher’s opinion that random sampling was not used initially in the selection of forty patients from the residential drug rehabilitation center. However, when splitting the forty patients into two treatment groups, the clients were split randomly. This places twenty participants in each subgroup. Pyrczak (2008) suggests that number of participants can be so small that generalizing would be inappropriate. At the conclusion of the study caution was given to the small sample size provided, but it was noted that “the sample size was more than sufficient to detect meaningful statistical differences, a major goal of all treatment studies” (Lin et al., 2004). This indicates that a generalization was drawn from the target group of residential drug rehabilitation clients and was not drawn from a diverse source. Some participant dropped out of the study resulting in a 35% completion rate (Lin et al., 2004). This low rate does effect generalizing the findings of the study.
References: Lin, W., Mack, D., Enright, R. Krahn, D. & Baskin, T. (2004). Effects of forgiveness therapy on anger, mood, and vulnerability to substance use among inpatient substance-dependent clients. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 72(6), p. 1114-1121. Pyrczak, F. (2008). Evaluating research in academic journals. Glendale, California: Pyrczak publishing.