Research Design: Strengths and Limitations
Today, there are a variety of research methods that are used by a psychologist or scientist used to answer a research question. The research question I am focusing on is, does playing violent video games increase aggressive behavior in children? I will be doing two different methods, an experimental method and a case study, to compare the two and to see the validity of the question.
For the experimental method, I would expose one group of children ages 9-17 to violent video games and another group of children ages 9-17 to video games with no violence. After multiple trials, I would show a low violence video game and I would evaluate each child’s tendency to be violent with the use of violent words at least one year after the completion of their trials. Counting the number of violent words each child says while watching the video will be identified as the dependent variable in the experiment. Having the ability to get two groups of children ages 9-17 in a laboratory could be considered as a strength because you are able to form a cause and effect relationship between the two groups by eliminating all causes from the outside world. The fact that this experiments setting is in a laboratory could be considered as a weakness because the children are not playing the video games in the comfort of their own homes which could cause unnatural behavior. To collect the data, I would use observers who would observe how many times each child says a violent word during the low violence video game. This would be considered as interrater reliability. This type of reliability is where the observers are consistent on their judging which in this experiment they are consistent as they are not changing the way they are counting. This experiment is valid because what is being measured is truly captured by the way we are measuring it which it with counting. This experiment would allow us to make a conclusion on causality between playing violent video games and the aggressive behavior in children. This experiment would allow us to make a cause and effect statement about video games because we can tell if playing violent video games (cause) leads to children having more aggressive behavior (effect).
My other method to answer this research question is a case study. As mentioned in chapter 2, a case study is when they focus on one individual or just a few individuals (Chapter 2 43). Case studies allow you to have an understanding on a deeper level of the individual that is being studied. For the research question, does playing violent video games increase aggressive behavior in children, I will use a case study method. For the case study method, I will expose one child aged from 9-17 to a video game for one year and then after his trial is completed I will watch his behavior and see if he has any aggression towards people. The violent video game will be considered as the dependent variable because it will stay the same for the whole year. The comfort of the own child’s home could be an example of a strength in this case study. One example of a weakness in this case study is, that there is no way to have a cause and effect. The reliability in this case study is strong because there is only one observer which means there is high consistency. The validity in this case study is good because it was the correct measuring of the behavior. This case study would not allow for the researcher to make conclusions about the causality of children playing violent video games and aggressive behavior. This method cannot allow the researcher to make a cause and effect statement about children playing violent video games causing aggressive behavior because there is nothing to compare to have a cause and an effect. I think that after the completion of this case study it would show that children playing violent video games cause aggression behavior.
After the completion of the environmental method and the case study, they show how a researcher can do a study on to see if playing violent video games causes aggression in children.
These studies would be the way I would do the experiment and case study to try to figure out the research question. Overall, after both studies I would conclude that violent video games cause aggression in children.