Critique a quantitative study for design elements and study validity. Critique of a Quantitative Article-Family Contexts and Sleep During Adolescence Critique of a Quantitative Article-Family Contexts and Sleep During Adolescence Use the guidelines for critiquing design elements and study validity.

Critique of Quantitative Article-Family Contexts and Sleep During Adolescence

Healthy People 2020 highlights the significance of sleep health in promoting the health of communities. It focuses on increasing communities’ knowledge of the importance of sleep adequacy in health maintenance and preservation. These provisions form the basis of the arguments by Schmeer et al. (2019) in the article “Family Contexts and sleep during Adolescence.” This article explores inter-individual sleep variations among adolescents as a factor in their family environment. According to the article, adolescents living in families with low socioeconomic status, unmarried parents, low economic security, and high caregiver stress are more likely to demonstrate intra-individual sleep variation. The authors conclude that family, economic, and social contexts are contributory to sleep disorders among adolescents. This paper critiques this article.

Statistical Power

The article’s findings and documentation revealed that there was adequate statistical power. The authors hypothesized that teenagers living in unmarried-parent and low socioeconomic families have high variability in their night sleep duration. The study utilizes a large sample size and effectively determines that unmarried parenthood and low socioeconomic status are drivers of sleep-associated problems among teenagers. In the study, the independent variables were marital status and socioeconomic status. The operationalization of the independent variable created a contrast in the statistical power. Per the study, marital status and socioeconomic status were found to have a predilection on the nature of sleep adolescents had. The study also utilized confounding variables to enhance its precision. The control variables employed include the gender and age of the participants. The study outcomes supported the hypothesis, thereby reinforcing the statistical validity of the study.

Intervention Fidelity

Intervention fidelity is integral to all research studies. An et al. (2020) note that intervention fidelity is an essential methodologic consideration in randomized and non-randomized studies as it ensures reliability and stamps the validity of the findings. A research is said to have observed intervention fidelity if it employs a protocol or a guideline in its executions, identifies the study methodology to be used, and identifies a standardized plan to measure and assess its outcomes (An et al., 2020). The study of focus, in this case, utilized the Adolescent Health and Development in Context (AHDC) study protocol in executing its research approach. Schmeer et al. (2019) also clearly define the protocol in their study. Additionally, the authors indicate the methodology utilized in the study along with a standardized plan to analyze the research findings. The article can thus be said to have observed intervention fidelity.

Eliminating Selection Biases

Selection biases are the leading causes of validity compromises in primary research. These biases affect the external validity of the research findings and may result in inaccurate representations and estimations of the relationships between the variables used in the study (Enzenbach et al., 2019). The study by Schmeer et al. (2019) utilized human participants in its execution. Ecological momentary assessments were randomly used to obtain the sleep patterns of the participants. While the study report indicates how it minimized biases among the study participants, it does not indicate how biases were eliminated during the selection of the participants. Notwithstanding, random ecological momentary assessments were adequate in minimizing confounding participants’ characteristics that may have affected the equivalence of the group being compared.

Internal Validity

Internal validity seeks to verify the cause-and-effect relationship between the research outcome and the test situations. The research design in the article ruled out the plausibility of other threats to internal validity by using a large sample size and including a control group in the study. Overall, the study demonstrated internal validity. Using a large sample size coupled with the control variable ensured that the findings were accurate representations of intra-individual variability in the sleep patterns among adolescents.

Construct Validity

Construct validity details the extent to which a test in research measures what it was meant for. The study findings were mainly based on ecological momentary assessments (EMA). EMA can be impacted negatively by the participant’s history, emotions at the time of assessment, and other intraindividual factors affecting an individual’s behaviours. These may have a bearing on