Lin Article Critique: Appropriate Population And Sampling Technique

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Lin Article Critique: Part 2 xxxxxxxxxxxx Liberty University COUN 503 September xx, 20xx Lin Article Critique: Part 2 In order to critique an article on appropriate population and sampling techniques, experimental procedures, and evaluation measures a critic must understand what constitutes an experiment. A study may be classified as an experiment when variables are manipulated to determine the existence of cause-and-effect relationships (Jackson, 2012). Independent variables are manipulated and dependent variables are measured (Jackson, 2012). The independent variables identified in the article written by Lin, Mack, Enright, Krahn, & Baskin (2004), “Effects of Forgiveness Therapy on Anger, Mood, and Vulnerability…show more content…
A random selection will allow for each participant to have an equal prospect of participating in the experimental conditions and minimizes group differences (Jackson, 2012). Random samples are then achieved through the random selection process (Jackson, 2012). Lin et al. (2004) used random samples of participants from an inpatient drug rehabilitation center. The samples were stratified and represented subgroups by gender, age, ethnicity, religious preferences, and educational level (Lin et al., 2004). The participants were randomly assigned either to FT or ADC therapies (Lin et al., 2004). The study initially started with 40 participants and 3 were eliminated due to their pretest scores (Lin et al., 2004). The final sample of the study was small with a completion rate of 35%, which was represented by 7 women and 7 men (Lin et al., 2004). According to Pyrczak (2013), a response rate of less than 50% would make generalizing the results difficult. The researchers did not mention any attempts to contact participants that dropped out of the study, which may have improved the studies overall response rate (Pyrczak,…show more content…
77). The following instruments were used in this study: EFI and SSTAEI as pretest measures, Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI-II), Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory (CSEI), State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), and the Vulnerability to drug use scale (Lin et al., 2004). Sample questions from each testing instrument were not provided in the study for review. However, treatment parameters were well explained with 12 individual treatment sessions lasting 1 hour each over a period of 6 weeks (Lin et al., 2004). Multiple methods of data collection were used with (3) self-report measures, (1) self-report questionnaire, (1) rating scale, and (1) 5-point Likert scale (Lin et al., 2004). Listed with each measure were citations where additional information could be obtained (Lin et al., 2004). Internal consistency was validated for each measure as evidenced by the use of Cronbach alpha coefficients: “…EFI, .96; STAI, .97; BDI-II, .86; STAEI, .90; CSEI, .76; and vulnerability to drug use scale, .76” (Lin et al., 2004, p. 1117). Empirical validity was confirmed for each testing instrument along with citations for additional source information (Lin et al., 2004). Following the guidelines for evaluating measures by Pyrczak (2013), the measures used in this study were

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