People who live in underserved remote areas do not have adequate
access to professional counseling services for alcohol abuse.
Improvements in internet access and video conferencing technology
may provide a means of delivering counseling services to
underserved remote areas. The purpose of this study is to
investigate the efficacy of a technology based delivery system for
counseling services. The researchers designed a study with a sample
of N = 40 participants who live in an underserved remote area and
who have entered counseling for alcohol abuse. The participants
will be randomly assigned to one of two groups, face-to-face
counseling or video conference counseling. Both groups will use the
same counseling model and will have the same number of sessions
over a three month period. The difference between the groups will
be how counseling services are delivered. Participants will
complete the Alcohol Dependence Scale (ADS) at the end of
treatment. The groups are considered equivalent at the beginning of
the study based on random assignment to groups. The null hypothesis
states there will be no difference in scores on the ADS between
face-to-face counseling and video conference counseling. The
researcher uses a between groups t-test to compare the post
treatment scores of the ADS for the two groups.
The output from the analysis is below. The results are
t(38) = 0.258, p = .798.
What type of study design is used? Please explain.
Does the study design accurately test the null hypothesis?
Is the correct statistical test used to analyze the data? Why?
Why not?
Regardless of whether or not the correct statistical test was
used, are the results statistically significant? Social science
research uses a p value of .05 to determine statistical
significance.
Does the researcher reject or fail to reject the null
hypothesis?
What are the implications of the results for the study and the
counseling field?