Respond to Cynthia by offering a strategy to address the ethical issue she or he identified.

A few sentences and a question. $5 post

Threats to Internal and External Validity in Quantitative Studies

The conclusions that researchers draw from their work will only be useful if they are valid. For example, if I designed a survey to assess the levels of job satisfaction within my organization but I end up measuring the levels of employee stress, my study will not be valid. Validity, therefore, is the level at which a concept is measured accurately in a quantitative study (Burkholder, Cox & Crawford, 2016). In other words, validity is the situation where the results support the interpretation of the data and that the way in which the interpretations are made is appropriate (Heale & Twycross, 2015).

A valid study has truthful and believable results. Internal validity relates to the structure of the study (if the results are useful and meaningful) while external validity relates to whether the results of the study can be applied to other groups, situations or events. One thereat to internal validity is history- other events occur during the course of the treatment that may alter the results apart from the researcher’s treatment.

For instance, if I am evaluating the effectiveness of a new, strict “no-lateness” policy at my organization, a few employees who are dismissed for general poor performance (lateness being just one of the reasons) may encourage other employees to adhere to this program. However, these employees are adhering to the program because of their dismissed colleagues and not entirely because of the policy. To mitigate this threat, the researcher should ensure that their sample is guarded rom other factors that may affect their participation in the study.

On the other hand, a threat to external validity could occur of the participants in the study are different from those in the population. For example, if the participants in my organization are significantly younger than those in the population, the results cannot be generalized. To mitigate this threat, the researcher/s need to make sure the sample is as diverse as possible so that it reflects the population in which it was selected from.

Ethical Issue

One potential ethical issue that may arise in quantitative research are issues to do with professional work that may lead to the participants being fired or face disciplinary action (Walden University Centre for Research Quality, 2018).Examples includes instances where the researcher discloses information on how the participants were guilty of gross misconduct or failure to follow the directions of their leaders. Therefore, the researcher must make sure that the design does not reveal the identity of the participants.

If I am studying 15 employees from one department, for example, I need not to name the shifts in which they worked because it would be easier for their seniors to track them based on the shift planner. Being amenable to scientific study means that the factors that influence the results of the study can be measured quantitatively. In the example above, for example, I should be able to measure the average arrival time of all the employees in regard to the “no-lateness” policy.

References

Babbie, E. (2017) Basics of social research (7th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.

Heale, R., & Twycross, A. (2015). Validity and reliability in quantitative studies. Evidence-based nursing, 18(3), 66-67.

Walden University: Centre for Research Quality (2018). Research ethics & Compliance: Documents and FAQs. Retrieved from https://academicguides. Waldenu.edu/researchcenter/ orec/documents