Experimental Research in Educational Psychology

In previous Post, we have read about Experimental, Correlational and Descriptive Research in Educational Psychology. We have also covered the importance of Research Knowledge. Now, this would be one of the sample research on Experimental Research, in line with Educational Psychology.

Self-regulation strategies improve self-discipline in adolescents: Benefits of mental contrasting and implementation intentions

Adolescents struggle with setting and striving for goals that require sustained self discipline. Research on adults indicates that goal commitment is enhanced by mental contrasting (MC), a strategy involving the cognitive elaboration of a desired future with relevant obstacles of present reality. Implementation intentions (II), which identify the action one will take when a goal-relevant opportunity arises, represent a strategy shown to increase goal attainment when commitment is high. This study tests the effect of mental contrasting combined with implementation intentions (MCII) on successful goal implementation in adolescents. Sixty-six 2nd-year high school students preparing to take a high stakes exam in the fall of their third year were randomly assigned to complete either a 30-minute written mental contrasting with implementation intentions intervention or a placebo control writing exercise. Students in the intervention condition completed more than 60% more practice questions than did students in the control condition. These findings point to the utility of directly teaching to adolescents mental contrasting with implementation intentions as a self-regulatory strategy of successful goal pursuit.

This past research by Duckworth, Grant, Loew, Oettingen and Gollwitzer (2011) tried to combine between two self-regulation strategies which are mental contrasting (MC) and implementation intentions (II) to have benefit in the improvement of self-discipline in adolescents. So the researchers tried to see any change to dependent variable which is self-regulation strategies (MCII)  from independent variable in this study which is self-discipline. In the study, the participants were randomly assigned into two groups which are experimental group and control group by randomly assigning their group.

As we all know, experiment study in psychology also has its own disadvantages. One of the disadvantages is the findings may not necessarily be generalized into the real world. The researchers in the past research quoted that they did not address the study to the extent the two skills (MCII) can be generalized to other different tasks than in the experiment. So it is hard to determine whether the findings can be implemented as the solution for the raised problem, before the experiment is conducted.

The PDF Article of this research produced by Duckworth, A.L., Grant, H., Loew, B., Oettingen, G., and Gollwitzer, P.M. (2011) can be downloaded and read from www.sas.upenn.edu/.../Self-regulation%20strategies%20improve%20self-discipline%20in%20adolescents.pdf

Prepared by Ashraff Hafeezie