Click on the following links. Please note these will open in a new window.

Article 1: Riketta, M. (2004). Does social desirability inflate the correlation between self-esteem and anxiety? Psychological Reports, 94, 1232-1234.

Summary: The author reports the results of a study that examines whether people’s feelings of social desirability explains the relationship between self-esteem and anxiety. The researcher found that including a measure of social desirability reduced the correlation between self-esteem and anxiety but that this reduction, while significant, may be too small to be of concern in research.

Learning Objective: Statistics for Correlation

Questions to Consider

1. What is the correlation between self-esteem and anxiety that has typically been found in research? Interpret this correlation in terms of its strength and direction.
    
2. What is the relationship between self-esteem and anxiety after including social desirability? Interpret this correlation in terms of its strength and direction.
    
3. What is the interpretation for why social desirability decreases the relationship between self-esteem and anxiety?
    

Article 2: Fisher, B. S. (2009). The effects of survey question wording on rape estimates. Violence Against Women, 15(2), 133-147.

Summary: The author reports the results of a quasi-experimental study that examined how the wording of questions regarding incidences of rape can lead to different estimates of percent of women who have been raped nationally and at universities. The author finds that the wording results in significant differences in estimates of sexual assaults.

Learning Objective: Questions About Groups: Quasi-Experimental Designs

Questions to Consider

1. What are the two groups in this study? Why do these groups make this a quasi-experimental design?
2. How does the wording of the question affect the results of rape estimates?
3. Can this study conclude that the groups caused differences in the estimates? Why or why not?
    

Article 3: Mazzola, J. J., Walker, E. J., Shockley, K. M., & Spector, P. E. (2011). Examining stress in graduate assistants: Combining qualitative and quantitative survey methods. Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 5, 198-211.

Summary: The authors conducted a study of graduate assistants in which they were asked about stressors they experienced and analyzed measures of stress related to a variety of stressors. They found that graduate students who reported specific types of stress scored higher on quantitative measures of those stressors. They suggest that using both qualitative and quantitative methods for assessing stress may be better than using one method only.

Learning Objectives: Where Qualitative and Quantitative Meet

Questions to Consider

1. In your own words, define qualitative and quantitative research methods?
2. What type of qualitative methods did the authors use to examine stress in graduate assistants?
3. What type of quantitative methods did the authors use to examine stress in graduate assistants?