Analysis and Scientific Method of the Article Fruit Consumption and Risk of Type 2 Diabetes - Essay Example

Analysis and scientific method of the article, ‘Fruit consumption and risk of type 2 diabetes: Results from three prospective longitudinal studies’ The method that identifies a longitudinal cohort study under a ‘non-experimental,’ design of qualitative research approach is a recognized approach but is not valid for the study. The existencethreatenperiod of research confounds over the research period compromises the study’s validity. Historical confounds are one of the factors that threatens the study’s validity.

Having considered a long period of time, there is a high probability that changes in factors such as living standards affect other factors of type two diabetes. The changes would therefore influence the study’s results to the perception that identified effects are attributed to types of fruits. The maturation effect, changes in research participants’ responses following numerous exposure to the study’s instrument is another major confound to the study (Goodwin, 2009). The study could be improved by implementing an experimental design over a short period.

the design would randomly select research participants and organize them into strata with standard conditions. One group, a control group, would refrain from fruit consumption while each of the remaining groups would be subjected to single types of fruits and data collected, and tests performed, to determine incidence rates of type 2 diabetes among the participants (Mu raki et. al., 2013).The researchers conducted the research themselves. Even though participant administered questionnaires were used, significant involvement in the determination of participants’ consumption levels justifies the researchers’ role.

Researchers’ participation in a research matter because it establishes grounds for evaluating reliability threats due to researchers’ bias. Not involvement communicates a higher level of reliability of a study. The researchers study human subjects, people identified as women and men. The large number of participants used in the study, 66105 women, 36173 men, and 85104 other women, was sufficient though there was no treatment. This means the absence of placebo and treatment groups. Researchers in the study considered a 25-year period in which data was collected from different research participants.

The period began in the year 1984 and ended in the year 2009 and was long enough for a longitudinal study (Muraki et. al., 2013).). The study was not a controlled experiment because its feature does not meet the definition of controlled experiments. Controlled experiments involved the randomization of a study’s participants into groups that receive different treatments, characteristics that did not exist in the study. Opportunities for confounding variables existed in the study’s long peri, on, and multiple measures.

These could have resulted in confounds of history due to such changes as lifestyles and confounds due to maturation and instrumentation as a result of multiple exposures to the involved questionnaires. Possibilities also exist that the researchers and participants’ bias confounded the results. the study’s scope could help in determining this. There was for example lack of measures for evaluating the validity of the participants’ independent responses and possible conflict of interest among the researchers on the subject. This was neither a blind nor double-blind study because no criteria is established to conceal results.