1. To study the effectiveness of parents’ guidance on healthy diet vs normal students who receive normal education on healthy diet.
Background: Healthy diet is being frequently promoted by the Health Department of Hong Kong. However, there is no systematic studies of what is the effective means of introducing the healthy diet concept to students.
a. Research Question: To study the effectiveness of parents’ guidance on healthy diet by comparing the BMI improvement of students who receive parents’ education on the healthy diet vs the existing students who receive normal education on the healthy diet.
(Note: BMI refers to the “Body Mass Index”, which is the measurement of health in a formula: Body weight (Kg) / Height2 (cm2)
H0: Mean of BMI of the students under parent’s guidance on healthy diet is the same as the mean of BMI of the students under normal education on healthy diet.
Ha: Mean of BMI of the students under parent’s guidance on healthy diet will be different from the mean of BMI of the students under normal education on healthy diet.
b. How could data for the variables be collected?
Population: Form 2 students, including both boys and girls, from three local secondary schools, who: 1. have parents that are willing to join the test. 2. are willing to let the teachers take the BMI in P.E. lessons.
Sampling method: In each school, students are randomly selected to the experimental group that will be given parents’ education and the control group with the existing students’ education. The number of boys and the number of girls randomly chosen for each group should be equal.
Sample size: random sampling: 30 students from each school.
The Experimental Process:
1. Randomly select 30 students with boys to girls ratio 1:1 in each school as the sample.
2. Among 30 students in each school, random assignment (R) is used to assign two groups with similar proportion of boys and girls.
3. Use of a pre-test (O) - The BMI of all F.2 students from the three schools is to be collected.
4. The parents of the first group receive a DVD containing information on how to provide guidance of healthy diet to teenage children. Then they show the DVD clippings to their children everyday for 15 minutes before dinner. There should be 60 clippings of videos in total (Treatment X1). For the second group, the students’ will just receive the normal education on healthy diet at school (Treatment X2).
5. After two months, perform a post-test (O), and take the measurement of BMI of the same group of students. There is comparison of the BMI of the two groups in each school.
Experimental Design: The pretest-posttest control group design
R O X1 O
R O X2 O
Instruments: 2 kinds of data are to be collected.
1. The BMI of the group of students with Parents’ education on healthy diet. (Experimental Group)
2. The BMI of the other group of students with only normal education on healthy diet. (Control Group)
Both kinds of data can be gathered from the regular health record measured during P.E. lessons.
Measurement: We will use T test as the measurement, the means score of BMI of both groups will be measures. With the help of statistical software, the T value of T test will be calculated.
For this study, we will reject the H0 (null hypothesis) if the p value is lower then the value in 0.05 level of significance.
c. How to contribute to improvements on the education/learning & teaching?
The results will tell us if parents’ involvement will help teenagers to focus on the importance of a healty diet. If the result is significant, it proves that parental guidance is important and the Health Department or the school can involve them in designing effective ways to promote healthy diet to teenagers.
Proposed Study 2
2. The usefulness of discussion forum in helping students’ learning.
a. Research Question: Is there any relationship between the uses of discussion forum and students learning?
H0: There is no relationship between the uses of discussion forum and student learning.
Ha: There is relationship between the uses of discussion forum and student learning.
b. How could data for the variables be collected?
Population: Form 4 students of a local secondary school.
Sampling method: Random Sampling method from the population – As every individual in the population will have the same chance to be selected, “random sampling” method will be used.
Sample size: 60 students.
The Experimental Process:
1. At the beginning of the second term, randomly select 60 students with 1:1 boys to girls ratio.
2. Randomly assign (R) them to two different groups with 1:1 boy to girl ratio, one group (experimental group) with new account to access discussion forum on the science subject online (Treatment X1) and the other group (control group) without that account (i.e. without the treatment of discussion forum (i.e. Treatment X2))
3. Carry out pre-test (O) on a particular science subject (e.g. mathematics) and collect the results of the whole population (e.g. the whole Form 4 students.)
4. At the end of the second term, carry out the same post-test (O) on the same subject and collect the results.
5. Compare the results of the two groups.
Experimental Design: The pretest-posttest control group design
R O X 1 O
R O X2 O
Instruments: 2 kinds of data are to be collected.
1. The results of the pre-test of a science subject
2. The results of the post-test of a science subject.
Measurement: We will use T test as the measurement, the means score of the poretest and posttest of the science project will be measured. With the help of statistical software, the T value of T test will be calculated.
For this study, we will reject the H0 (null hypothesis) if the p value is lower then the value in 0.05 level of significance.
c. How to contribute to improve the education/learning & teaching?
The study would be useful in exploring the effectiveness of online discussion forum in students’ learning. If the results show a high degree of significance level, it could lead the teachers/principals to think seriously if they should let students use discussion forum for the particular subject in order to facilitate their learning.
This is also room for future research, e.g. whether discussion forums are useful for students’ learning in all subjects. Different disciplines may yield different results and it maybe worthwhile to introduce the discussion forums into other subject teaching and this can be extended into another research study.
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