Refining the study hypothesis
Every study aims at attaining a given objective that has prompted the study. This goal necessitates understanding the nature of the experiment and what will determine its success through formulating several expected outcomes that the experiment must fulfill to be considered successful, called hypothesis. Thus, a hypothesis can be considered a set of statements formulated during the study that creates a relationship between a determined set of variables to explain an observation which gives an insight into the success of the research.
Considering the case, it requires an operational hypothesis that looks like a PICOT question. The population provided in this experiment is the undergraduate students who participated in the yoga classes (Abbade et al., 2017). The intervention of the experiment is recording the number of students who participated in the weekly yoga classes. The comparison in the study could be students who did not attend the yoga classes. The outcome should be assessing if the yoga participation improved the participants’ results. Lastly, the time is not definite; however, the experiment should last t the end of one academic year when students are examined broadly.
Recruiting participants
Since the experiment is already restricted to be within the university premises, the research will be limited to selecting students from the school. Therefore, the first group to be considered should be students already participating in yoga classes because they are ready and understand what the experiment entails. Secondly, lectures could be approached to recommend students who they know will benefit from the secondary studies. Thirdly, students will be encouraged to bring at least one of their friends and recommend some who will need the heads to join. Lastly, advertisements should be made through fliers, posters, and online platforms such as the school website.
Exclusion criteria
The first group to be exempted are those with medical conditions and physical challenges unsuitable for yoga. However, those willing to participate should be accepted as an ethical practice. Secondly, senior students who have completed over three years in the university should be excluded. Thirdly, students below 18 years and 24 years because they are not in a specific group of university students. Lastly, students from competitive athletes such as football and basketball should be excluded because it might impact their performance.
Exposure of interest
To determine the participants’ interest, one should observe the number of students attending the yoga classes at least once per week. The exposure group can easily be divided into three groups. Those attending at least two weekly classes will be considered light yoga participants. Those attending three or four classes will be considered intermediate. In comparison, those attending over four weekly classes will be considered heavy yoga participants. The results should be from an average of a given period of not less than three months. Finally, the unexposed group will include all those excluded students and not participants.
Collection of information on exam performance
The school administration and students will jointly avail the examination collection to the researchers to analyze each student’s progress. The first set of examination data will be obtained at the beginning of the study (Mosconi et al., 2021). Students will be asked to register their last semester performance on a scale of A, B, C, D, and F to avoid disclosing participants’ results. The data will be collected after all school’s formal test results have been released. Students will be required to fill in complete questionnaires and give a review on the impacts of yoga.
Maximizing and assessing compliance
Physical exercise turnout among university students can be low depending on the nature of the participants. Thus, to encourage compliance, researchers should divide the class into groups that are made up of light, intermediate, and heavy yoga participants. First, these groups should be competing, especially on punctuality and attendance (Snider et al., 2020). Secondly, there will be rewards for best-performing groups and for every member who manages to return to participation after missing over three consecutive weeks of the session. Lastly, there will be a roll call to keep track of attendees and reach those who have not been showing up for practice individually.
Ethical Consideration
Since this is research in a school setup that involves physical exercise and the possibility of injuries, the first consideration should be the participant’s safety by reducing the risk and preparing the quick first aid response team (Greiff et al., 2022). Secondly, the researchers will obtain informed consent from the participants and avoid deceptive approaches. The third is keeping the student’s information and general reporting results, including the whole group, to honor the privacy acts. Lastly, students should be given the freedom to make a choice and choose the path they prefer.
Extra information for this study
Researchers should seek to understand the political, economic, and environmental factors in and around the school. Secondly, they should seek academic information such as the students’ daily lessons and when a maximum number of students could be available for yoga practices. Lastly, instructors should be aware of the medical conditions of their subjects, especially those from recent treatment, those with long-term illnesses such as cancer, and those with lifestyle diseases such as diabetes.
Data Analysis
The data will utilize statistical power to ensure a balance between those who participated, those who did not complete, and those who completed the exercise, where their results will be analyzed cumulatively.
References
Abbade, L. P., Wang, M., Sriganesh, K., Jin, Y., Mbuagbaw, L., & Thabane, L. (2017). The framing of research questions using the PICOT format in randomized controlled trials of venous ulcer disease is suboptimal: A systematic survey. Wound Repair and Regeneration, 25(5), 892-900. Web.
Greiff, P., Reinken, C., & Hoppe, U. (2022). Ethical perception of a digital study assistant: Student survey of ethical values. Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Computer Supported Education. Web.
Snider, S. H., Flume, P. A., Gentilin, S. L., Lesch, W. A., Sampson, R. R., & Sonne, S. C. (2020). Overcoming non-compliance with clinical trial registration and results reporting: One institution’s approach. Contemporary Clinical Trials Communications, 18, 100557. Web.