The central research question is the following: For childhood obesity (P), does the implementation of after-school obesity prevention programs (I) compared to currently deployed educational practices (C) reduce the risks of obesity and related health concerns (O) in the long run (T)?
Study Design
In order to address the research question and find a relevant answer, the best choice is to conduct an experimental intervention. The motivation for making this choice is the plan to record and measure the outcomes of the intervention. This feature is common for experimental studies (Melnyk & Morrison-Beedy, 2012).
Setting and Sample
To address the research question properly and achieve positive outcomes of the intervention, it will be conducted as a school-based. The motivation for this choice is the need for educating young children – those between 5 and 12 years old – on ways to prevent obesity. In addition, the objective of the intervention is the desire to educate parents because they are the inseparable part of the potential success of the intervention and decreased obesity rate among young children, as they control food intake at home and contribute to the educational development of their children (Kothandan, 2014). The plan is to conduct the intervention based on two classes due to the limited research resources.
The setting is one school. One class will be the intervention group, while the second one is the control group. The classes will be chosen randomly. However, the school will be chosen according to the principles of convenience sampling – out of available schools and those easily acceptable within the chosen region (Melnyk & Morrison-Beedy, 2012). There is no fixed number of planned respondents. The only idea is to choose two classes and include the young students and their parents in the sample.
Confidentiality
Guaranteeing confidentiality is the most critical aspect of the research. In order to address this issue, informed consent forms will be designed and distributed for signing. The idea is to assure the respondents that their personal information will be used for answering the research question only. At the same time, their personal data will not be directly mentioned in the research or shared with any other researchers.
Procedures and Interventions
The plan is to conduct an after-school educational program. The objective of the intervention is to communicate the postulates of healthy dieting as well as the most effective nutrition and physical exercise patterns with the respondents. The foundation of the intervention is the combination of visual materials (videos and photos) and lectures outlining the main concepts related to the topic under consideration. The most efficient schemes of dieting and exercises will be obtained while conducting a thorough literature review.
Instruments, Scales, and Measurements of Outcomes
The effectiveness of the intervention will be tested based on the findings of the collected questionnaires on healthy dieting and exercises. The idea is to ask parents and kids from both groups to fill them twice – before and after launching the educational program. In order to measure the findings of the research, a mixed research design will be chosen. Because the intervention is limited in time, there is no need for conducting complex calculations, such as changes in body weight or body mass index, especially keeping in mind that it is a theoretical intervention, i.e. without any tests of physical condition. Instead, the idea is to evaluate the qualitative knowledge of the intervention.
Still, some simple calculations, such as percentages and ratios, are critical for a better understanding of the problem under consideration. That is why a mixed research design – the combination of qualitative and quantitative procedures – is the best option for this study (Johnson & Christensen, 2017). In order to avoid validity issues, research findings will be compared with differing theoretical perspectives on the selected intervention procedures, i.e. simple triangulation techniques will be deployed (Cresswell, 2014).
Data Collection: Methods of Collection and Testing Frequency
Data will be collected from surveys. The questionnaires will be designed in a way to find out the level of respondents’ knowledge of the principles of healthy dieting and effective physical exercises. The questionnaires will include multiple-choice questions. No difference will be made between data collection for two classes. In this way, respondents belonging to both groups will be asked to fill in the questionnaires for two times – before and after the course of educational lectures.
The motivation for asking the non-intervention group respondents to complete two surveys as well as the probability of changes in their knowledge of obesity prevention due to potential communication between the two groups. This assumption is connected to the fact that they are not limited to each other. More than that, this research will include the observation section. The idea is to observe children from the intervention group in the school cafeteria with the focus on their choice of food. The motivation for this plan is the desire to find out whether their knowledge does not differ from the decisions they make.
Based on the procedures described above, the collection of baseline information is a planned procedure. The data obtained before the beginning of the intervention will make up the baseline. No repeated measures, such as pre- and post-tests, are planned due to the limited resources and timeframes of the research.
References
Cresswell, J. W. (2014). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
Johnson, R. B., & Christensen, L. (2017). Educational research: Quantitative, qualitative, and mixed approach (6th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
Kothandan, S. K. (2014). School-based interventions versus family-based interventions in the treatment of childhood obesity – a systematic review. Archives of Public Health, 72(1), 3-19. Web.
Melnyk, B. M., & Morrison-Beedy, D. (2012). Intervention research: Designing, conducting, analyzing, and funding. New York, NY: Springer.