Autistic traits in the general population - a study!

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Every time I see an undergrad psych student inviting people to participate in a "study" on the internet, I always have the urge to take the test and screw around with the answers. I don't know why I do that.

Survey needs statements to be more complete and concise. Many of your statements are wishywashy. Use more "I always feel", "I never feel", "I am", "I am not", etc, statements, avoid "sometimes", "occassionally" type statements unless you give extra selection criteria such as "Not sure", "Don't Understand" or "Sometimes".

I completely agree! This always frustrates me about psych tests. However, almost all of the questions come from previously developed tests which have been validated etc. and are widely used. If the researcher made up all their own questions it would have to be a validation study of their new scale, rather than utilising the data for other purposes. The options "slightly agree", "strongly agree" etc. are also those used by the developers of the original scales. Again, the researcher would have to come up with some very strong, theory-based reasons to change them.

Last edited by yellowtamarin on 15 Sep 2010, 7:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Good thing there are measures of detecting this then! Having said that, please try to refrain in this instance

If it's your survey, your study, your assessment then do it your way. Stop plagarising. Your course co-ordinator or who ever should be encouraging new analytical programmes and patterns.

It's common practice and not plagiarising. There's not much point going to all the trouble of developing tests if nobody is going to use them in future research. The developers report on reliability, validity, etc. etc. so others can use their test with confidence. If you have developed a test yourself, you can't make solid conclusions about the results you get until that test has been used a number of times, often by other researchers. Therefore if the student in this case were to come up with their own scale, the thesis would have to be about the scale and its development, not about the results from using the scale.
There are some "new" questions in this questionnaire, and reporting on the results from these questions will involve talking about it as a "pilot" study, and future research will have to be done to replicate the findings and further validate the questions.

How the data from the established scales is analysed is a different story, and of course will be done slightly differently as the researcher has ideas to explore.

You're studying a science, right? Creating new theories and testing other's theories is a major part of the scientific method right? There is always a better way, a more accurate method, a better informed result. Science is a perpetual process of intellectual evolution.

Yep, that's all happening in the analysis. There's not enough time in fourth year to do both, unfortunately. In fact it's probably a bit ambitious to even be adding any new questions, most don't. But their inclusion will hopefully add new insight. That's the plan at least!

Good luck!
Can you post a link with your results when you and Emma have finished?

Thanks!
There will probably be a summary report of the findings or something like that, I can post it up here (near the end of the year).

Sounds like an interesting stud, yt. I'd be really interested to see the results. Perhaps you can pm me, toward the end of the year?

I will try and get some of my family to do it .. there are traits amongst the undiagnosed (and not on the spectrum) there.

Sure, I'll let know know the results