Psychology Research Methods Assignment

PART 1

Scenario1: Do undergraduate college psychology students watch more TV than psychology graduate students?

TV watching is an issue of interest in researchers of diverse backgrounds ranging from education to psychology. Some are interested in how TV watching affects student’s academic outcomes. For example, Tarekegn & Endri (2019) performed a study in Harer to determine the effect of TV on academic achievement. The difference in study level could lead to differences in student’s behavior. For example, Ickes et al. (2019) performed a study to observe differences in stress coping strategies among graduate and undergraduate students. Similarly, could there be a difference in TV watch hours between graduate and undergraduate students? This article highlights a suitable methodology to answer this research question.

Background

The spread of the internet had some people believing that TV watching would reduce, but TV viewing seems not to have dived, according to Forbes Nichole Roberts (2019). One reason TV has continued occupying an important place in daily living is the psychological release and escape it offers its viewers. TV watching also acts as a medium of communication of information, for example, on developing news. However, excessive TV watching has some detrimental effects on its viewers, including obesity, sleeping difficulties, and negative associations with academic outcomes (Morowatisharifabad et al., 2015). It is therefore pertinent to understand how different populations interact with TV in terms of watching hours.

Research has already shown that elementary school students spend more time watching TV than high school students (Morowatisharifabad et al., 2015). Generational differences also influence how much people watch TV. American adults (from 18 years and above) spend an average of four hours watching TV. However, it seems the number of hours adults spend on TV increases with each generation rising from one hour and thirty-seven minutes in adults aged 18-34 to seven hours fourteen minutes among adults aged 65 and above (Richter, 2020). Gender also influences how many hours a person watches TV, with a general trend showing that men spend more time watching TV than women (Stoll, 2021). Therefore, from the above findings, one can decipher that different populations spend different time watching TV because of varied reasons.

Research Question and Hypothesis

This research is especially interested in the differences in TV watching hours between undergraduate psychology students and graduate students. Therefore the research question is: “Do undergraduate college psychology students watch more TV than psychology graduate students?” I theorize that difference in school-level impacts behavior and, in this case, TV watching hours. Thus, the hypothesis will be:
H1: Graduate students spend more time watching TV than undergraduate students.

Methodology

To find answers for the above research requires a suitable methodology. The study will be undertaken through an online survey where participants will answer a predesigned questionnaire. A survey involves collecting information from a population group and then analyzing their answers (McCombes, 2020). There are two types of surveys: questionnaires or interviews. This research uses online questionnaires.

Design

The research will be a cross-sectional study design, which is observational. In a cross-sectional study, one selects participants based on inclusion and exclusion criteria alone, and they are suitable for population-based surveys (Setia, 2016).

Read Chapters 11 and 15 (155–164 and 209–220) of the Bailey and Bur...