Taming of the volunteer problem: On coping with artifacts by benign neglect.

Rosnow, Ralph L.; Rosenthal, Robert

doi:10.1037/h0036535

Cited by 13 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 10 publications

(4 reference statements)

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“…Volunteers, regardless of their positions of responsibility for choice in the experiment, were still likely to volunteer for continued treatment, whereas nonvolunteers were much less likely to be interested in further sessions. This result supports Rosnow and Rosenthal's (1974;Rosenthal & Rosnow, 1975) argument that volunteering is a reliable and systematic source of bias. However, the direction of the bias is not always clear.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 81%

Effects of volunteering and responsibility on the perceived value and effectiveness of a clinical treatment.

Gordon¹

1976

Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology

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Both volunteer and nonvolunteer subjects were randomly assigned to one of two conditions. In the choice condition, subjects were led to believe that they had a choice between two hypothetical relaxation treatments that both they and another subject would receive. Subjects in the second condition were denied the choice of treatment, receiving the treatment chosen by another subject. All subjects, regardless of choice, actually received the same taped relaxation treatment. As predicted, volunteer subjects who were given a choice between treatments significantly valued the treatment more and reported the treatment to be significantly more effective than volunteer subjects who had no choice in the matter. Nonvolunteer subjects, viewing choice as less important than volunteer subjects, were not significantly affected by the subsequent responsibility manipulation. Whereas volunteering may be a reliable source of bias, the degree to which the volunteer feels responsible for the success of the outcome appears to predict the direction of the bias. These findings are relevant to both the clinician and to clinical outcome research.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 81%

Effects of volunteering and responsibility on the perceived value and effectiveness of a clinical treatment.

Gordon¹

1976

Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology

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“…We would argue, however, that although volunteer-nonvolunteer status is a problem, the major concern is systematic tendencies to volunteer for specific types of research. Furthermore, it is not clear that a subpopulation of absolute nonvolunteers exists, as test-retest reliabilities of volunteering for an experiment are moderate at best (about .50, Rosnow & Rosenthal, 1974). In consistency with Kruglanski's (1973) and Eysenck's (1975) arguments, we feel that a Volunteer × Experiment Content interaction (which was supported by the results of our experiment) is the critical issue, and we have demonstrated a method for detecting such effects.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A method for empirically assessing volunteer selection effects: Recruitment procedures and responses to erotica.

Saunders¹,

Fisher²,

Hewitt³

et al. 1985

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

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In this experiment we used a method that empirically assessed the effects of subject self-selection in laboratory research. Subjects were recruited for two "different" experiments (responses to erotica or personality questionnaires) and then exposed to the same procedures. The domain used to demonstrate this "different experiments" approach was sex research, and the substantive issue examined was whether men and women differ in their responses to erotica. In Part 1 of the study, all subjects answered questionnaires that assessed personality and demographic characteristics. In Part 2, subjects who agreed to watch an erotic movie (95% agreed) reported their reactions to it. The study indicated that conclusions about prior sexual experience, sexual opinions, and affective responses to the erotic film were qualified by recruitment condition. This experiment suggested that volunteer selection can have an important effect on experimental results, and it demonstrated a method for assessing the extent of these effects.

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“…[3] Although incentivised participant pools in psychology fail to address the issue of science being the 'psychology of sophomore students' (McNemar, 1946), they do at the very least address the historically reported issue of volunteer participation effects (Rosnow & Rosenthal, 1974). Incentivisation, particularly in terms of 'course credit' for psychology undergraduate students, is not without criticism.…”

Section: Acknowledgementmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Validation of the Academic Behavioural Confidence Scale with Spanish Psychology Students

Sander

Arias

Stevenson

et al. 2011

Psychology Learning & Teaching

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Research has shown that UK university students' confidence in engaging with their academic studies can be usefully measured using the Academic Behavioural Confidence (ABC) scale. The scale is best considered as a 17-item scale measuring confidence towards grades, studying, verbalising and attendance. A substantial collaborative study with research partners in Spain created the need for the ABC scale to be translated into Castellan Spanish, providing an opportunity to carry out a cross-cultural validation of the scale. A total of 2,056 Spanish psychology students from the universities of Almería and Granada in south-eastern Spain completed an appropriately translated version of the ABC scale. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis showed that the four-subscale structure derived from equivalent UK students was still the best description of the data, although the fit of the four-factor model to the Spanish data was not quite as good as it had been with an equivalent UK sample. Possible explanations for the poorer fit are discussed. A further opportunity arose to validate the Spanish version of the ABC scale against the Revised Two-Factor Study Process Questionnaire. The findings showed that the ABC subscales of Grades, Studying and Verbalising significantly correlated with a deep approach to learning, as predicted, although it is noted that the correlation coefficients, whilst significant ( p < .01), were again not as high as seen with the UK student data. It is nevertheless argued that the ABC scale in both its Spanish and English versions is a useful way of understanding students' orientation to their university study, and can be used in research, as a diagnostic tool or to aid tutors in creating more effective learning opportunities for their students.

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Taming of the volunteer problem: On coping with artifacts by benign neglect.

Cited by 13 publications

References 10 publications

Effects of volunteering and responsibility on the perceived value and effectiveness of a clinical treatment.

Effects of volunteering and responsibility on the perceived value and effectiveness of a clinical treatment.

A method for empirically assessing volunteer selection effects: Recruitment procedures and responses to erotica.

A Validation of the Academic Behavioural Confidence Scale with Spanish Psychology Students

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