Research in Counseling Psychology Flashcards
What does it mean to be a scientist-practitioner?
■ Conducting research
■ Being a good consumer of research
– Critically evaluate research that you read
■ Applying research findings to practice
■ Approaching clients with a scientific mindset
– Forming hypotheses about how the client’s problems are
developed and how to address those problems
What are steps in the research cycle?
- identify your research aim
- chose an appropriate experimental method
- conduct your research
- analyze the data
- publish your research findings
- What are steps in theory building and testing? *
make specific hypotheses -> do the research -> revise your theory
What are two major types of psychotherapy research?
outcomes
- Essentially: does therapy work?
process
- essentially: under what conditions and for whom does therapy work? & when why and how does change occur in the therapy process?
What are some examples questions that outcome research and process research can answer, separately?
outcomes
- does therapy work?
- what specific therapies work?
- is CBT effective compared to no therapy?
- is DBT more effective than CBT?
process
- how does therapy work?
- for whom does therapy work?
- under what conditions does group therapy work?
- how does TLDP improve mood?
What is single group design?
- used in outcomes research
- tests the effectiveness of treatment by looking at an outcome variable before and after treatment- is there a significant change?
- absolute efficacy (whether a treatment is effective at all)
What is randomized controlled trial?
- used in outcomes research
- tests the effectiveness of treatment by comparing one or more treatment groups against a control group
- are the groups scores on the DV significantly different from each other post treatment?
- Relative efficacy: comparing the efficacy of a treatment against
other treatment (+ absolute efficacy)
What are some important considerations for RCT?
- must define the inclusion and exclusion data
■ researchers trying to establish whether treatment works for specific population or disorder
■ Even within people who have a specific diagnosis, there is a lot of
heterogeneity
– How long have you had the disorder?
– Family history?
– Previous treatment: Therapy? Medication? Both?
– Comorbid disorders?
■ Recruitment issues - Must define the control group
■ Blinding: how do you make sure the participants don’t know what
group they’re in?
– Placebo effect
■ “Supportive therapy”/ “Treatment as usual”
■ “Pure control”: no intervention
■ Wait-list control: receive intervention after the study - Must operationalize the therapy
■ Strictly define and standardize how the treatment will be delivered
■ Manualized treatment
– A specific protocol explaining how to carry out the therapy
What are therapist-related factors in RCTs?
■ Therapist effects: some individual therapists may be more effective
than others
■ Therapist adherence: therapists may differ in how closely they follow
the manualized treatment
What is mediation?
A third variable accounts for the association between 2 variables
– How/why do effects occur?
What is moderation?
A third variable affects the direction or strength of association
between 2 variables
– When/for whom does treatment work?
what is the difference between mediation and moderations? provide examples
mediation is the intervening variable that explains relationship between IV and DV (it is the variable that explains the outcome of the DV)
moderation is the variable that changed the strength or direction of relationship between treatment and outcome, tells us why and for whom the treatment works
what is open science?
A scholarly movement dedicated to the core principles and
behaviors of making research transparent, credible, reproducible,
and accessible
What are some key components of open science?
Preregistration
■ Require researchers to register their study’s hypotheses, methods,
and analysis plans before conducting the research
– Open data, protocols, materials, and code
