Yokley and Glenwick (1984)- strengths, weaknesses

Question 1

Name 2 methdological strengths in Yokley and Glenwick (1984) study?

Answer 1

• High internal validity- due to the use of two control groups- facilitates ease of comparison and helps isolate the effects of contact itself vs the intervention- which allows causal inferences and this eliminates demand characteristics,
• High reliability and standardisation- due to procedural reliability checks of the prompts, names and addresses- controls for extraneous variables/ variability such as miscommunication- enhances replicability.

demand characteristics- whether being contacted led to demand characteristics and thus resulted in the change vs not being contacted at all (not knowing one is part of a study)- causal inferences

Question 2

Name 2 methdological weaknesses of Yokley & Glenwick’s study (1984)?

Answer 2

Use of field expeirments and reduced control and validity- increased potential for confounding variables that could skew results (local health campaigns, outbreak of illnesses, socioecnomic constraints like travel, word of mouth between ppts/ neighbours/friends)

Limited generalisability- focused on low-income urban communities in the US (could the successful results of a monetary intervention/ increased access reflect the same in higher income/ rural populations/ countries with different healthcare systems.

Question 3

Issues and debates- How were the ethics of the experiement?

Answer 3

Overal good- voluntary partipation, harmless intervention.
Weakness- ppts in the no-contact group may have missed out on important and benifical information. (fairness?)

Question 4

Issues and debates- How does the study have good RWA?

Answer 4

• Demonstrates that patients are more likely to adhere to medical requests if there’s some form of incentive (demonstrates these results can be sustained)
• Looked beyond behaviour and examined economic viability which is ESSENTIAL for real world POLICY-MAKING.
  Thus, provides valuable insights for health departments and professionals/

analysed economic viabiliy

Question 5

issues and debates- is the study nomethic or ideographic? why?

Answer 5

Nomothetic- aims to establish general laws based on the study of large groups.

Question 6

Summarise strengths and weaknesses

Answer 6

Strengths- high internal validity due to control groups + high reliability due to standardised checks.
Weakness- Generalisbility limitations due to low-income area, urban focus. Low validity- due to redcued control of field experiments.