Premenopausal Obese American Women

Conclusions Concerning Results and Methodology.

There are a number of methodological difficulties that seriously limit the validity of the study and, therefore, the degree of confidence which can be placed in conclusions formulated on the basis of research results. These methodological difficulties are here discussed:

(1) One of the most serious methodological difficulties with the study concerned subject-selection procedures. All subjects were recruited via advertisements placed in local papers. These advertisements specified subject selection criteria--these being that subjects were required to be females between 35 and 45 years of age who were at least 100 pounds overweight.

All subjects were paid ten dollars for their participation. All individuals contacting the researcher via the method specified in the advertisement and who met subject-selection criteria were accepted as subjects until a sample of 200 females had been obtained.

The point that needs to be discussed here is the failure to randomly select subjects. As noted by Borg and Gall (1977), random sampling consists of the selection of members from a specified population such that every member has an equal chance of being chosen. Best (1981) puts it this way:

[In the simple random sample] individual observations or ind

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rument. In this regard, it can be noted that the instrument, The Physical/Psychosocial Effects of Obesity Inventory, was a researcher-designed questionnaire developed using test construction procedures recommended by Borg and Gall (1977). These procedures included the development of the first draft of the instrument based on the literature on the effects of obesity, the submission of this draft to a panel of experts in the field, and the incorporation of experts' comments regarding ways to make the draft a more valid and reliable questionnaire. Test construction and development procedures also involved administering the second draft of the instrument to a small sample of subjects who evaluated it for understandability and ease of completion. What needs to be discussed here is that while procedures were used to make the instrument more valid and reliable, the questionnaire was not a standardized research instrument. Borg and Gall (1977) define a standardized test as an instrument which assesses individual differences along a given dimension of behavior and which is characterized by the following characteristics: (1) Objectivity - Through psychometric development and research, the standardized test has been shown to be undist
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Approximate Word count = 2110
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)

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