Summary
Gallois, Buck, Dreas, Hassel and Zeeb (2012) carried out a quasi-experimental study for descriptive, explanatory and evaluative purposes to examine the effectiveness of an intervention named ”OPTIMAHL 60plus” that contains counseling aids for the elderly on the basis of self-regulation. Four hypotheses proposed by the authors, corresponding to four different aspects: fruit and vegetables (FV), dairy products (D), fish (F), and physical activities (PA), was that the intervention would improve old people’s consumption or performance in one or more aspects.
In this study, participants ' recruitment process consists of several steps. First, researchers chose 29 areas in low socio-economic status via an existing social index. Next, within …show more content…
Nevertheless, it was affirmed that, from an overall perspective, the effectiveness of the intervention “OPTIMAHL 60plus” could not be identified in this empirical research.
Critique
In this empirical study, both advantages and disadvantages were displayed.
On the one hand, merits were apparent. First, through a literature review, the authors provided substantial evidence to demonstrate the important roles that nutrition and physical activities play in profoundly improving old people’s health condition. Second, they also proved that it was difficult to guarantee a balanced diet and sufficient active exercises unless the elderly had a high-level of autonomy, for which the development of a self-regulatory counseling aid was necessary and urgent. Third, by going through explicit conceptualization and operationalization, the concept of “health” was actually transformed into observable and testable variables, that were the foundation of four hypotheses in the article that turned out to be clear and …show more content…
Also, as participants had a prevalent coverage in terms of age and all of them could care for themselves, they mirrored the targeted population: the elderly with autonomy ability. Next, in the process of collecting and measuring participants’ performance, although interviews probably brought desirability bias and mainly relied on old people’ recalling which might be inaccurate, using triangulation mostly avoided deficits existing in single method. To be specific, two different standardized questionnaires of high feasibility complemented each other and interviews created excellent opportunities for observation and interaction, primarily decreasing random errors. Moreover, the authors used various statistical methods to, respectively, analyze changes within groups and across groups and examine outcomes with or without confounders, raising the confidence in intervention’s influence and preventing causality from being
Gallois, Buck, Dreas, Hassel and Zeeb (2012) carried out a quasi-experimental study for descriptive, explanatory and evaluative purposes to examine the effectiveness of an intervention named ”OPTIMAHL 60plus” that contains counseling aids for the elderly on the basis of self-regulation. Four hypotheses proposed by the authors, corresponding to four different aspects: fruit and vegetables (FV), dairy products (D), fish (F), and physical activities (PA), was that the intervention would improve old people’s consumption or performance in one or more aspects.
In this study, participants ' recruitment process consists of several steps. First, researchers chose 29 areas in low socio-economic status via an existing social index. Next, within …show more content…
Nevertheless, it was affirmed that, from an overall perspective, the effectiveness of the intervention “OPTIMAHL 60plus” could not be identified in this empirical research.
Critique
In this empirical study, both advantages and disadvantages were displayed.
On the one hand, merits were apparent. First, through a literature review, the authors provided substantial evidence to demonstrate the important roles that nutrition and physical activities play in profoundly improving old people’s health condition. Second, they also proved that it was difficult to guarantee a balanced diet and sufficient active exercises unless the elderly had a high-level of autonomy, for which the development of a self-regulatory counseling aid was necessary and urgent. Third, by going through explicit conceptualization and operationalization, the concept of “health” was actually transformed into observable and testable variables, that were the foundation of four hypotheses in the article that turned out to be clear and …show more content…
Also, as participants had a prevalent coverage in terms of age and all of them could care for themselves, they mirrored the targeted population: the elderly with autonomy ability. Next, in the process of collecting and measuring participants’ performance, although interviews probably brought desirability bias and mainly relied on old people’ recalling which might be inaccurate, using triangulation mostly avoided deficits existing in single method. To be specific, two different standardized questionnaires of high feasibility complemented each other and interviews created excellent opportunities for observation and interaction, primarily decreasing random errors. Moreover, the authors used various statistical methods to, respectively, analyze changes within groups and across groups and examine outcomes with or without confounders, raising the confidence in intervention’s influence and preventing causality from being