Suppose you want to conduct survey on jail inmates and are worried about low participation rates. You decide you want to encourage elible participants to complete a survey by offering an incentive. What type of incentive do you think would be inappropriate to offer inmates? Why? What type of incentive would be appropriate and why?

An inappropriate incentive to offer jail inmates would be cash or items that can be used as currency within the facility, such as cigarettes or commissary items. These could disrupt the prison economy, create safety concerns, or be unequally distributed or misused. Such incentives may also be viewed as coercive, compromising voluntary participation. Incentives for Inmate Research Participation

An appropriate incentive would be something non-monetary but meaningful, like additional recreational time, phone privileges, or educational materials. The incentives support well-being without undermining institutional rules. These incentives respect ethical boundaries, minimize coercion, and maintain fairness while still encouraging participation. It is essential that any incentive aligns with correctional facility policies and avoids putting participants or staff at risk.

Incentives for Inmate Research Participation

You wish to demonstrate a program you have established to ensure bystander intervention is effective at increasing bystander intervention on a college campus. How might you go about demonstrating a causal relationship between the intervention and the bystander intervention? What design would you use, and why?

To demonstrate a causal relationship between the bystander intervention program and increased bystander intervention on a college campus, I would use a randomized controlled trial (RCT) design. This design involves randomly assigning participants into two groups: one that receives the intervention (experimental group) and one that does not (control group). Pre- and post-intervention surveys or simulations would be used to assess bystander attitudes, confidence, and actual intervention behaviors.

By comparing changes between the two groups, this method helps control for confounding variables and ensures any observed differences in behavior can be attributed to the program itself. The random assignment minimizes bias and strengthens internal validity. This makes the RCT the most rigorous approach for establishing causality and evaluating the true impact of the intervention on bystander behavior. APA