P14145480

Critiquing a research article of an examination of speech reception thresholds

measured in a simulated reverberant cafeteria environment

The paper I am critiquing is a quantitative research article, after reading the article I found
some positive and negative factors about the paper. First of all the title of the article does
explain the experiment and research going to be carried out, but after reading the article the
title misses out on key information such as the second testing environment. The title of the
research article also does not explain or makes clear any links to audiology. This research
article states no hypothesis as it is not clearly identified but the article does imply a
hypothesis but it is not directly stated. The problem of the article is not clearly stated in the
title as it does not explain the cause or effect of the problem being looked at, but is briefly
stated in the abstract. The problem of the research article is adequately narrowed down into
a researchable problem as the researchers have made it clear that they will be testing the
group of people in a reverberant cafeteria and a laboratory. A positive factor about testing in
a cafeteria is that the researchers have thought to do the testing in a real-life situation which
people with hearing losses will go through all the time. I think the problem is significant
enough to form a formal research effort as others in the past have conducted this study
before, for this research to be conducted it would generally cost less and would not be time
consuming. Also when the study was conducted in the past totally different results were
obtained as this time the study was conducted in real-life situations and not simple
situations. I believe the relationship between the identified problem and previous research is
clearly described and the abstract does offer a clear overview of the study and the research
problem. The sample size and methodology are clearly stated and findings of the study are
mentioned briefly. There are ethical considerations for this study we have to think about, for
example when choosing the sample size the researchers rewarded the participants with a
reward and also paid them some money as a way of saying thank you.
I think the research article is logically organised and a lot of good points have been made
but, the points made are better being somewhere else in the article. An example of this is
that when the researchers explain the aim of the study and the method they are going to do,
they should have mentioned this earlier in the article as the aim and method are very
important for the reader to know and understand what the study is about. The aim and
method were mentioned half way through the paper which can confuse the reader. I am
aware I said the research article was well organised, however I felt as though the data was
not presented well and therefore made it more difficult to go through the paper and
understand it, I found that the article drifted away a lot from the main purpose and topic. All
of the above mentioned could be improved by just placing the important and relevant
information at the start of the article. In the article there is a clear description of the
procedures and this was briefly described in the abstract, if any other researchers were to try
and conduct this study they would be able to get similar results. The researchers present
that there are gaps in knowledge about the research problem because previous researchers
conducted the study but did not come to a final decision. In the research article important
relevant references are included which is a big help for people wanting to repeat the study,
the researchers referenced the questionnaire they gave out to the group of people before
they took a hearing test. The researchers also referenced any previous studies and previous
researchers names, again this would make it less difficult for another person to come and
conduct the same study.
I believe the theoretical framework is forced in many areas as it drifts away from the main
points like I said earlier. I also found that the researchers would get more reliable results

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when the testing the group of people in the cafeteria as the environment is a real-life
situation, when testing in the lab they will not get reliable results because the group of
people are not going to be in that sort of situation all the time or at all. The independent and
dependent variables are not defined straight away, also the independent variables change
and this is the changes of the environment as the researchers test the group of people in the
cafeteria then the laboratory. The dependent variable does not change and this is the actual
hearing test being taken by the group of people. A factor I have realised is that when testing
the group of people with the hearing aids in, their hearing aids will all be on a different setting
as they dont all have the same hearing. As I mentioned earlier the research article states no
hypothesis as it is not clearly identified but the article does imply a hypothesis but it is not
directly stated. As for the sampling I think it is an adequate size and is not, this is because
forty-six people were chosen, 18 of them had normal hearing and the other 28 had hearing
losses. I think for this study to be a bit fairer they should have chosen half with normal
hearing and half with hearing losses. The sample size is and is not representative of the
defined population. I believe the method for selection of the sample was not appropriate
because, the group of people chosen were between 18-57 and the mean age was 41. This
tells us that most of the people chosen were of an older age, as we know the older a person
gets the worse the hearing would be compared to someone who is young. For this reason I
think the sampling is biased in the chosen method acknowledged. The criteria for selecting
the sample is clearly identified as it is a specific criteria, because it is a specific criteria and a
laboratory experiment it cannot be generalised.
I think the research design was adequately described, for example the way the researchers
planned out and described the method was good, as they tested the people with hearing
aids first then tested the stimuli. But as I read on I found it became difficult to understand as I
could no longer grasp the idea of the design being used. I believe the design is appropriate
for the research problem because, if this design was used again by another researcher
wanting to conduct the same study they would get reliable results. This is because the
results obtained when doing the study this time were similar and they were all in correlation.
The research design does address issues related to the internal and external validity of the
study because, what was said in the abstract about the method of the study and also other
things were actually done by the researchers. So what they said they were going to do was
done and they did not stray away from the main purpose of the study. I think the data
collection is appropriate for the study as the results were all reliable, as you can see from
figure 5. Figure 5 is scatterplot which shows individual SRTs in the complex environment
against SRTs in the standard environment, it showed that all the plots were going up on the
solid line. The data collection instruments are also described adequately as the researchers
talk clearly about the software programme being used to trigger the next set of questions for
the group of people, the measurement tools have reasonable validity and reliability too.
I believe the results section is clearly and logically organised because the figures received
from doing the study were clearly stated and also diagrams and tables were used to make it
easier, but the tables and figures were not easy to grasp and understand. The results list the
experimental data then go along to further explain on how some variables may have
interfered, the results relate back to the research purpose throughout the study and also
address the objective and subjective measures. Also the statistical test is the correct one for
answering the research question. The researcher clearly distinguishes between actual
findings and interpretations, as he mentions that in previous studies it was shown that HI
listeners received less benefit from listening in the dips greatly because of the sound of the
masker signals. These interpretations are based on the results of the current study because,
the researcher explains how in the current study the HI listeners received more benefit from
listening in the dips. All findings are discussed in relation to the previous investigations and

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to the conceptual/theoretical framework because researchers have included in their report,
ideas and findings from past studies. All generalisations are warranted and defended but
because the reverberant cafeteria is simulated the researchers have the ability to change
around a few things for their own satisfaction, also they can change anything to suit and
meet the needs of the experiment being carried out. If this study wasnt done in a simulated
cafeteria and was instead done in a real life one then problems would have come up and the
results would have definitely have been different.
Limitations of the results have been identified because the researcher explains that one of
the limitations is the environment, he mentions that it was a downfall that the study could not
be conducted in any other environment. If the study was conducted in other environments
then they would have had more reliable results to work with. The researcher discusses
implications of the results as well, as I mentioned before one of the implications is the testing
of the different environments. Recommendations have been mentioned and identified for
future research as the researchers advise other investigators in the article to add realism to
the acoustic signals as this could improve the results and the ecological validity. The
researcher also mentions to combine ecological modifications to achieve a relevant outcome
measure.
Overall the conclusion they made is justified, as they state what they are going to do and
stuck with that. Although this was done they did move away from the subject at certain times
in the article. The researchers did say they were going to provide a starting point for
investigators who wanted to also carry out this study, they achieved this and now
investigators will find it less difficult to increase the real-world relevance of laboratory based
speech tests.