Silver Yoga Exercises, Article Critique Example

Research design

The research design used in this research article is known as a quasi-experimental, untreated control group with pretest and post-test design. This is a rigorous design considering the purpose of the research as the joint use of pretest and a comparison group helps in the examination of certain threats to validity. This design allowed appropriate comparisons to be made both pre and post test as well with the control group this tests enabled the results to be interpreted with minimal errors.

According to the sample groups which were involved in the research test the number of data collection points were appropriate although for such a sensitive research we expect the points to be a bit more and specific. Because the groups are nonequivalent, we presume that selection bias was present. In addition, the pretest allows the exploration of the possible size and the bias direction. So the design did minimize the bias but to some extent.

Population sample

The population was identified and described sufficiently. For instance, 69 participated in the study where 38 participants were assigned to SY and 31 were control group. Further, the participants were described in age, ability to walk without assistance, Barthel index score and mini mental state. Mann-Whitney U or Pearson X squared sampling technique used is the best to compare the demographic profiles of participants who participated fully and those who withdrew from the study. Sample biases were minimized by the sample selection design since no significant differences was noted verifying the representativeness of the participants who remained in the study. Sample size was adequate as power analysis was used to estimate sample size needs.

Data collection and measurement

The independent variables included; body composition i.e. height, and weight, cardiovascular respiratory functions where as dependent variables included body flexibility, muscle power endurance, balance, and agility. The key variables war measure by observations and no interviews or questionnaire was used in collecting the data. This was important since data collected has little or completely no bias. Intervention was adequately described and properly implemented in the study. The fact that the participants were attended by the expats during practice proves of the intervention fidelity. Data collected had little bias because the staffs involved in data collection were experts.

Results

Data analysis was keenly done to address each research study hypothesis. Analysis of data was done through statistical package for social science for windows (version 17.0 SPSS). This method of analysis puts into consideration all the hypothetical research questions under study. Statistical methods of data analysis were employed in data analysis and ensured that data collected was properly analyzed to represent the correct picture of the findings. Descriptive statistics methods such as standard deviation, range, and frequency distribution were used to describe the demographic date of the participants of each group. Pearson or Fisher’s exact test was used to test the group differences in the demographic profiles. Mixed design two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used in detecting the variables, which had time and group interaction effects. Analysis of covariance was conducted at week 12 and at the end of week 24 to further understand the group differences. Covariance was computed on that variable in which time and group had interactions effects by using pretest data as the covariance to offset the differences of the group at the beginning. Covariance is a powerful data analysis technique that was use s and helped to solve confounding results.

The analysis of the result clearly reveals that both type I and type II errors were minimized to a small level. Type I error which results from rejection of null hypothesis is not experienced in this research as well as type II error which results from rejection of alternative hypothesis. The research hypothesis was kept silent until the end of the research, which provided the truth about the differences of participants’ physical and mental health.