Unit2 - Lecture notes 2 PDF

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University of the People

PSYC 1504 Introduction to Psychology Written Assignment 2

1. From the introduction: what is the general topic that the article is addressing? What is the purpose of the research described in this article? What are the author's hypotheses/hypotheses?

The article starts by defining what sleep deprivation is. And try to answer the following question: is there any influence of sleep deprivation on the academic performance of the students of North Texas? The hypothesis is saying that yes, there are effects on academic performance. The study tries to confirm that hypothesis. It is good to notice that this study is deeply inspired by another study related to almost the same topic. The topic of the original study is the effect of sleep deprivation on the quality of sleep and daytime sleep and fatigue.

2. Briefly describe the methods: who were the participants? What did they have to do in this study? What were the measures that were collected? How was it collected? The method used by this study is called the convergent parallel mixte-method “A convergent parallel design entails that the researcher concurrently conducts the quantitative and qualitative elements in the same phase of the research process, weighs the methods equally, analyzes the two components independently, and interprets the results together (Creswell & Pablo-Clark, 2011).”. This means that we analyze the quantitative and qualitative separately and in the end, we combine the conclusions of both. the study sample was selected in a very curious fashion. They selected the population for this study from all the universities of the north of Texas excluding the universities that have less than one thousand to guaranty to have a more diverse sample. The participants to this study have to fill an electronic survey that contains questions about the following: the university to where the student belongs, the educational major, the average hours

of sleep daily, the GPA used as a measure of educational performance, the sleep quality and other activities that can interfere with academic performance. The data was collected by sending the link to the electronic survey to students who are invited to a form using Google forms to fill out the survey and click submit when finished. The survey was anonymous except for the school and the major the student was studying. these two pieces of information could give more information about the university program's differences also the difference of majors as majors are requiring more effort than others. And the programs may differ depending on the university.

3. In general, what were the results of this study? (Don’t use numbers or describe statistics).

The results of this study confirm the hypothesis done at the beginning of the study which is sleep deprivation harms academic performance. The more the students have enough sleep good the academic performance is. They noticed that for the students that complained about sleep deprivation the academic performance is poor. the results indicate that the academic performance depends also on daytime sleepiness which makes students not focused.

4. What were the major conclusions of the study? What are the implications of this study, both in terms of future psychological research and understanding social behavior out in the “real world”? Make sure you don’t simply use the limitations described in the study—come up with your own.

The major conclusions of the study are: Sleep deprivation leads to poor academic performance. the quality of sleep is also affected by sleep deprivation because when a student does not have enough nocturnal sleep, he or she will extend that the daytime which makes him or her not

focused on studying. also, we can notice that the quality of sleep hours is almost the same for everybody because shortening the sleep hours at night will extend it to daytime hours with less quality sleep. the implication is that sleep is very important in our day-to-day life because it balances the activity needed for our life and the time needed to rest. When one overlaps the others, a lot of other personality traits end by having poor performance not only academic performance. Sleep deprivation will also affect all the other functionalities of the body and the behavior. I think that the most evident limitation is that the study is very specific to a group of people, in this case, north Texas, and the results may differ for other people in other states. The choice of sample is not optimal because it does not represent all the population concerned by this study and the method used is not effective.

5. In your opinion, what are the strengths and limitations of this research? Could there have been modifications in the way the study was conducted? What kind of “tips” would you have given the researchers with what you know?

I think that sending emails to teachers who don’t reply is the most weakness I saw in this study. Also, the sampling is not successful because it does not represent all the people involved in this study. Technology can help by extending the population and making sure samples are more effective than the one used here.

6. Form a conclusion about the value of the study. How does it apply to our world today? Was it valuable and/or informative? How did it enhance the way you view current or historical experiences/events?

The study is very valuable because using the result to enhance the student academic experience by preventing their need to do other things than studying. This may be used to improve the conditions and the environment of the student by providing all their needs to focus more on their academic work. Also, this shows the influence of other factors as sleep on other performance, academic performance in this case.

References : 1. A Convergent Parallel Mixed-Methods Study of Controversial Issues in Social Studies Classes: A Clash of Ideologies. (Selcuk Besir Demir , Nuray Pismek, 2017) https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1179818.pdf 2. Creswell, J. W., & Plano Clark, V. L. (2011). Designing and conducting mixed methods research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. 3. International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 10, Issue 5, May-2019 -The Effects of Sleep Deprivation on the Academic Performance of College Students: https://www.ijser.org/researchpaper/The-Effects-of-Sleep-Deprivation-on-the-AcademicPerformance-of-College-Students.pdf...