Experimental design that can be used in investigations related to human health.
Question 3
Experimental design that can be used in investigations related to human health. The outline of such an investigation is provided below. Read the outline and answer the questions that follow.
A study to evaluate the impact of a new design of smart watch on motivation to be physically active
Smart devices are becoming increasingly common in many aspects of daily life, including the monitoring of health. For instance, there are a number of devices that can be used to provide near real-time information about physical activity levels and physiological parameters such as heart rate, body temperature, blood oxygenation levels and blood glucose levels.
Given the apparent success of fitness trackers in encouraging people to exercise by completing a threshold number of steps each day, a company has developed a new smart watch-based fitness tracker called the ‘290-coach’ which they believe is more effective than their previous model, the ‘190-fitness-monitor’, in motivating people to be physically active.
The key difference between the two models is that while the ‘190-fitness-monitor’ provides a graphical display showing the number of steps walked and the number left to reach the daily threshold, the ‘290-coach’ also provides a range of audiovisual alerts to celebrate when an individual completes a certain number of steps on their way to reaching the daily threshold, including recordings of inspirational statements read by celebrities. The two devices use the same casing and strap, are made from the same materials and weigh the same amount.
The manufacturer would like you to advise them on the design of a study to evaluate their claim because they would like to highlight it when they start to market the ‘290-coach’ and demonstrate that they have good scientific evidence available to support their marketing efforts.
It has already been agreed that the outcome measure for this study will be the percentage of participants in the sample who perform the threshold number of steps in a 24-hour period. As this study is focused on physical activity, it has also been agreed that individuals who volunteer will be pre-screened for their general physical fitness to ensure that the participant sample does not include individuals who are extremely fit or extremely sedentary, as their data may excessively skew the outcome measure.
For the purposes of this TMA question you can assume the following:
The participant sample will be generated in such a way as to ensure that demographic variables including sex, ethnicity, socio-economic status and education are representative of the UK population.
All participants will wear the smart device on their left wrist.
All participants will also be required to wear a digital pedometer, which will be attached to their clothing (e.g. through a belt loop). This device will independently record daily step counts but will provide no data to the participants about their physical activity (i.e. it does not have a display/counter or any other indicator to tell the participant how many steps they have completed – this information can only be accessed online by the research team). It can be assumed that the weight of the digital pedometer is negligible and it can be worn anywhere on the body (e.g. to account for clothing which may not have belt loops) except on or near the wrists.
This study has been reviewed and approved by an independent human participant research ethics panel.
a.The manufacturer would like to use a within-subject design for this study. What are the main advantages of this type of design compared to a between-subject design?
b.What are the dependent and independent variables in this study?
The manufacturer would like to obtain data from participants while they are:
wearing the ‘190-fitness-monitor’
wearing the ‘290-coach’
wearing a ‘dummy’ device which looks and weighs the same as the smart devices and is worn on the same wrist but has no functionality
not wearing any device on their wrist.
c.Based on the information provided in the question, indicate how many conditions (or levels) the independent variable has in this study.
As this study uses a within-subject design, the manufacturer has decided to prepare a table which shows the sequence of conditions that each participant will experience during the data collection phases.
You are asked to review a small portion of the table, shown in Table 1, and make sure it complies with the requirements of the within-subject design.
Participant ID Data collection phase 1 Data collection phase 2 Data collection phase 3 Data collection phase 4
S104 190 290 Dummy No device
SD815 290 Dummy No device 190
SDK228 Dummy No device 290 No device
SK277 190 290 Dummy No device
d.Based on your review of the sequencing table and your knowledge of the within-subject design, briefly (in no more than 100 words) comment on the sequencing for participant SDK228. You should consider in particular any issues this sequencing raises with respect to the requirements and features of the within-subject design.
e.Recall that the manufacturer included two ‘additional conditions’ in the study – the ‘dummy’ device condition and the ‘no device’ condition – and that under all conditions in this study, participants will be required to wear the independent digital pedometer device on their clothing.
What insights will the data collected in the ‘dummy’ condition provide about whether smart fitness trackers promote physical activity?
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