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Youth Outcomes : An Analysis Of Intervention And Control Group Children

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To determine preliminary youth outcomes, an analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Chi-square tests were used to compare intervention and control group participants by age, grade, gender, and baseline scores on all measures. It was determined that the students who had participated in the intervention were more likely than the control group children to be in fourth grade and younger (Mendeleson et al., 2010). When the psychosocial variables were assessed from the pretest, it was determined that there was no significant difference between the intervention group and the control group (Mendelson et al., 2010). Intervention effects were assessed with the use of data analysis techniques. An estimation of general linear models was conducted for each …show more content…

Mendelson et al. (2010) reported multiple limitations, or characteristics of design or methodology that impacted the interpretation of the research findings. First, the small sample size of students did not provide enough power to determine true group differences and also prevented testing of moderation and mediation (Mendelson et al., 2010). There is also the limitation that the researchers do not know the Type I error rate, or the chance that a false positive occurred do to the rejection of a hypothesis when the results could have happened by chance (McMillan & Schumacher, 2010). Even thought the findings are consistent with an intervention effect, there can be no inference of causal effects because Mendelson et al. (2010) did not take into account for the clustered nature of the data. Mendelson et al. (2010) also reported that they did not utilize hierarchical linear models due to the fact that there were only four schools in the study. Mendelson et al. (2010) may have recruited more highly motivated students and students who have parents that are more engaged, thus biasing the sample population of students. This bias of sampling alludes to the fact that the students who participated may not truly represent the intended study population. According to McMillan and Schumacher (2010), a review of literature should summarize and analyze previously reported research that is directly related to the current study. Overall,

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