Blog Posts Tagged "Self Studies".

How to Choose and Measure Your Variables

This Part 2 post follows the previous post in this series… Psychology Trends: How to Design a Self Study (Part 1)

Understanding Independent Variable / Dependent Variable

An independent variable is your hypothesized cause and a dependent variable is your hypothesized effect (as in cause-and -effect).

Your study will generally have only 1 independent variable but could have multiple dependent variables (see footnote * for doing a self study with multiple independent variables).

For example, you could investigate the effect of exercising (the independent variable) on your energy, your mood, and your relationship conflict (the dependent variables).

Use a spreadsheet OR draw up a piece of paper with 3 columns.

Column A. the date

Column B. Your Independent Variable (your hypothesized cause)

Column C. Your Dependent Variable (your hypothesized effect).

If you want to measure more than 1 dependent variable, add an additional column for each additional dependent variable.

Tip 1: Use a Continuous Measure If Possible.

If one of your variables is a

Yes vs. No
Happened vs. Didn’t Happen
Didn’t do it vs. Did it.

type variable you can code it as

No = 0, Yes = 1
Didn’t do it = 0, Did it = 1
etc

Enter either 0 or 1 in that column on your spreadsheet each day.

However, if possible you should generally try to use a continuous measure e.g. minutes of vigorous exercise today, happiness rating 0-10, rather than a 0 vs. 1 for did vigorous exercise today/didn’t, happy/not happy.

The reason for this is that you get better data this way. If you measure how many minutes you exercised you can always transform your data later if you want to. You can add an extra column to measure “0 = did no vigorous exercise/ 1 = did some vigorous exercise”. You will then be able to see if the number of minutes was important or just whether you did it or not. Using a continuous measure is also generally better for statistics theory reasons for when you come to analyze your data but I’ll skip going into why.

Ask yourself if there is a way of thinking of your variables as a continuous measure?

For example, for measuring relationship conflict, instead of asking “Did we have any relationship conflict today? Yes vs. No, you might ask the question as

“How much conflict did I have my relationship with my wife today?” 0-10

or

“In the last 24 hours, to what degree was my relationship with my wife characterized by conflict?” 0-10.

This is better than yes vs. no.

Tip 2: Designing Ratings Scales.

Let’s say you are interested in how doing vigorous exercise affects your next day’s energy, your anxiety, and your overall mood.

You could measure these 3 dependent variables using 3 rating scales

At the end of each day you could answer the question “How Do I Feel?” on a

0 – 10 scale, ranging from 0 = I feel no anxiety at all, to 10 = I feel extremely anxious.

0 = no energy at all, 10 = extremely energetic
0 = as miserable as I can imagine ever feeling, 10 = as happy as I can imagine ever feeling.

Tip 3: Creating a Mini-Questionnaire.

Let’s say you are only interested in one dependent variable. In this case, I will use the example of social confidence.

Instead of only completing one rating of your social confidence, there are advantages to making a mini questionnaire.

For example, a mini-questionnaire for social confidence might look like this…

Question 1.

0 = I feel very pessimistic about social situations to 10 = I feel very optimistic about social situations.

Question 2.

0 = I expect that other people will generally dislike me to 10 = I expect that other people will generally like me.

Question 3.

0 = I expect that social situations will generally go very badly to 10 = I expect that social situations will generally go very well.

Each day you would do all 3 ratings.

What are the advantages of creating a mini-questionnaire rather than only using 1 question?

- When you run some basic statistics on your self study data (I’ll show you how in an upcoming post), you can average the results of the 3 questions, or you can look at the results of each question separately, or both.

- Using the average of the 3 questions can result in a statistically more reliable measure of your dependent variable (I won’t go into the stats theory! But, if you have some basic stats knowledge then a good rule of thumb as that if the results of your 3 questions are correlated .55 or greater with EACH OTHER – not with the independent variable – then you can combine them and use the average of the 3).

- Another reason for asking your question several different ways is that sometimes a particular way of asking a question can seem like a good idea, but in fact isn’t. This way if one of your questions turns out to suck for an unanticipated reason you can discard the data for that question and still have other data.

Tip 4: Two sides of the same coin or not?

There aren’t hard and fast rules about this but in general when you create a rating scale its better to NOT assume that two things are opposites of each other.

For example, it’s better to ask 3 questions

1. How calm do I feel? 0 = not at all calm, 10 = extremely calm.
2. How relaxed do I feel? 0 = not at all relaxed, 10 = extremely relaxed.
3. How anxious do I feel? 0 = not at all anxious, 10 = extremely anxious.

Rather than

How do I feel?

0 = extremely calm/relaxed, 10 = extremely anxious.

Its generally best not to ASSUME that calm/relaxed and anxious are direct opposites of each other. Another example would be happy vs. sad. (You might have noticed that I have already violated this in my examples – like I said, no hard and fast rules)

If you are going to go to the trouble of doing a self study than adding a couple of additional rating scale questions takes very little additional time/effort but gives you a lot more data.

Tip 5. Using a More Objective Measure of Your Dependent Variable

In general, well-designed rating scales can work surprisingly well.

However another option is to use a more objective measure.

For example, let’s say you were doing a self study of whether planning your next day’s eating each evening leads you to eat more moderately the following day.

Each evening you could rate how much you ate in the day on a 0-10 scale (e.g. 0 = much less than average, 5 = average, 10 = much more than average). Or, you could use an app or online calculator to count your calories. The rating scale is obviously easier but more vulnerable to your perception.

Tip 6. Using “Collateral Data”

For example, if one of your dependent variables is your general mood, you might do your own rating of your mood and also have your partner provide a rating.

You should let your partner record their rating independently without you interfering or trying to influence their rating.

If you are recording your mood for a month, you might remind them to do the rating but ask them to give you their set of ratings are the end of the month.

I highly recommend this option if it is available to you.

Tip 7. You might want to consider booking a single session with a psychologist who has experience with study/questionnaire design to help you design your self study.

You could get help with choosing

- WHICH variables to measure, and

- HOW to measure your variables.

Info for how to analyze your data coming up in a future post….

Footnote* – If you have access to a program to do a regression analysis (e.g. SPSS) then you could do a self study with multiple independent variables. For example, you could enter sleep, exercise, and ratings for social activity and behavioural avoidance as the independent variables, and mood as the dependent variable. You’d then see which of the independent variables had the strongest relationship to your mood.

End of this Post. But wait.... There's More.....

An emerging trend is people using methods similar to those used in psychology research to study themselves.

A MAJOR COOL THING about studies of self – your options for what you can study are almost endless. And, you’re completely in control.

Another MAJOR COOL THING – people’s perceptions of cause and effect in their lives (e.g. what determines their emotions or what determines aspects of their behaviour) tend to be skewed from reality. Using studies of self you can can rely more on reality and less on your perceptions (which might be distorted/inaccurate).

If you actively do things in your life because you think they are helpful to you, you can determine if what you do really is helpful and is the effect big, small or medium? What really makes a difference?

What’s to Come?

I’m going to provide detailed tips and instructions for how people can do their own studies of self. But for now, let’s look at 2 basic varieties of self study, as well as a combined option. Which type is best will depend on your purposes.

Option 1: The A – B – A – B Design

Let’s say you have an idea that doing 30 minutes of vigorous exercise in the evenings, leads to increased energy the following day.

However, sometimes you cannot be bothered exercising so you want to see how helpful exercising really is.

In an A-B-A-B design

“A” refers to a period of time when you are NOT DOING the behaviour that you think might cause a difference in some aspect of your life (i.e. not exercising).

“B” refers to a period of time when you are doing the behaviour (i.e. exercising) EVERY DAY.

So, in an A-B-A-B design you would

first do A = not exercise. Let’s say for 2 weeks.

Each day you monitor your energy on a 0 – 10 scale

0 = feeling no energy at all, 10 = feeling extremely energetic. You might do recordings at 9am, noon, 4pm, and 9pm. Put an alarm on your phone and carry a piece of paper to jot down your ratings or input them into your phone.

B = Do two weeks of exercising every night. Continue recording your energy.

A = Return to NOT exercising for two weeks, but keep recording your energy.

B = Exercise every day for two final weeks and record your energy.

Option 2: The Correlation Design

Each day you do the same energy ratings as above and also record how many minutes of vigorous exercise you did the day before (e.g. 0 minutes, 10 minutes, 30 minutes).

- You then use very simple statistics called a correlation (I’ll show you how – in upcoming posts) to figure out if statistically you had more energy on days when you did more exercise the night before i.e. if you exercised more, your energy was higher the next day.

- To visualize your data, you can also put it on a scatterplot.

- For correlation designs, the longer you collect your data for, the more reliable your self study will be and the more chance you have of detecting real effects if these exist (even small effects might be important to you in your life and to detect these you need enough data).

As a ballpark, a minimum of about 20 days or ideally 30.

Option 3: The Combined Option.

Do a baseline period. Let’s say 2 weeks of not exercising but recording your energy.

Then proceed with the correlation design.

End of this Post. But wait.... There's More.....

I’ve previously written about how people make mistakes in predicting how happy something will make them (The rate of divorces is a good example of this mis-prediction). Or to put it another way, people make errors in estimating the impact of their specific behaviours on their thoughts and feelings.

When you’re contemplating a behaviour change (which includes trying out alternative coping to replace behaviours you’re not happy with) its a good idea to test – the status quo vs. the new thing

Example 1:

You have a habit of spending your evenings on the computer, even though you already spend a lot of time on the computer at work. You’re not entirely happy with this habit but you’re not sure if you want to change.

You could run an experiment in which

in Week 1 you behave as normal for a week.

in Week 2, you leave your computer turned off after work and do alternative activities.

In both weeks, you would do a quick set of ratings each day. You might choose to do your ratings once a day or, ideally, repeat the same ratings twice a day at roughly the same time each day – perhaps before going to bed and upon arriving at work.

What you choose to rate will depend on what’s important to you.

For example you could rate,

- your energy (0 = not energetic at all, 10 = extremely energetic)
- how creative you feel (0 = not at all, 10 = extremely)
- how happy you feel
- how irritable you feel
- how close to your family you feel

Choose 3-4 types of ratings to do (e.g. 3-4 from above list).

Example 2:

In my recent jogging post, I wrote that exercise helps decrease anxiety and improve mood.

Say you decide to jog at 6pm 3 times per week, using the Couch to 5K program recommended in the article.

If you want to get an accurate picture of the effect jogging is having on your mood and anxiety, you could rate how you feel in the 24 hours after jogging vs. equivalent 24 hour periods after not jogging.

You would need to decide what you want to rate.

You might decide that you will rate

- your anxiety (0 = not at all anxious, 10 = extremely anxious),
- your irritability , and
- your creativity (increased positive emotions are associated with broader, more flexible, more generous, and more creative thinking).
- how productive you’ve been

You decide on a scale to use 0 = not at all, 10 = extremely.

You decide to do the ratings for 2 weeks to get a good picture.
You might decide to do the ratings 4 times a day
e.g. upon waking, lunchtime, straight after jogging, when you go to bed.

And, it’s that easy.

End of this Post. But wait.... There's More.....