Health Project Week 2
Week 2 - Treatment Condition

Travis DixonHealth Psychology, Teaching Ideas

In Week 2 we manipulate the IV by trying to improve one health habit.

In Week 1 the main job was collecting data on a range of health habits (sleep, diet, exercise) and their possible effects. This week, you’re going to choose one of those habits that you want to improve. If you can do better this week, that will be your manipulation of your independent variable. We’ll then see in Week 3 if it had an effect after we analyze the results.

Read more:

Teachers: Feel free to adapt or amend any of this work in any way you like.

Week 2: Treatment Condition

Read 

  • Reflect on what you have learned in the IB Psychology course by identifying another useful concept, summarizing it and explain how and/or why you think this might be useful for you in the future. 
  • Read this summary of a study that investigates the link between smartphones and sleep quality. 
  • Write a summary of the conclusions of this study in your words. 
  • Evaluate the study by explaining some of the limitations of this study. 
  • HL Extension: Complete the practice Paper 3 questions that are at the bottom of the above blog post on sleep and happiness. 

Research

  • Use google scholar or your textbook/s to find at least one study that shows an effect of one of your identified habits (IVs) that you’re going to change this week (see task below). 
  • Write a summary of the conclusions of the study
  • Extension: Write a full summary of the study, including aims, methods and results (150-200 words). 
  • HL Extension: Evaluate the study, including explaining strengths and limitations. 

Data Collection

  • Choose one of your health habits that you are going to change this week. Your decision should be based on Week 1’s data. See below for examples.
  • Write a list of your health habit goals for the week in your workbook. 
  • Create a new blank data collection table. 
  • Collect data every day for a minimum of 5 days. 

Example “Treatments”

Remember that we’re conducting an “experiment.” This means that you need to manipulate your independent variable in some way. You’re manipulating one specific health habit that you think needs improving. 

For example, if you found you only averaged 6 hours of sleep per night, you might set a goal of getting 8 hours each night in this second “Treatment condition” week. Similarly, you might find that you spent 2 hours per day on Instagram. You might set the goal of limiting this to <1 hour per week. 

Create data collection sheets for this week’s data (you can use the same as last week’s).