Assignment Task:
Researchers at The University of Texas at El Paso were invited by a local agency to evaluate its new program called, "Children First." Families first referred to Child Protective Services can now choose between Children First and Functional Family Therapy. The local agency has asked the researchers to help determine which program is more effective at improving family functioning and decreasing the likelihood of children being removed from the home. The researchers begin to conduct this study once 10 families have chosen Children First and 10 families have chosen Functional Family Therapy. Researchers have each family complete scales measuring family functioning and track the number of children removed from home before the intervention and again after the intervention to determine which intervention is most effective.
1. What type of research is being conducted in the above scenario? Which of the experimental designs are the researchers using?
2. In the above scenario, of these threats to internal validity (History, Maturation, Testing/Instrumentation, and Selection Bias), which can be ruled out by the research design (meaning, they are not a threat to the study's validity)? Which cannot be ruled (meaning, they are a threat to the study's validity)? Why can each this be ruled out or not ruled out
3. What are the independent and dependent variable?