This assignment started out by reading all of our classmates’ discussion board posts from unit 13 assignment 2, which was about internet-based therapy. Following this, we had to remind ourselves from the course syllabus of the best way to reply to someone else’s discussion board post. Finally, we had to reply to two students’ discussion board posts, including one post of someone who read the same article as us, and one who read a different article than us.
No one in my section ended up reading the same article that I did, so I responded to 2 students who read different articles than myself. The first response was to a girl named Stella, who read an article about alcohol screening and intervention.
I started out my response by saying that I have a connection with her, as I also drink alcohol and had to do the AlcoholEdu program. Similarly, that program failed to impact my drinking habits for the most part, at least to my knowledge.
I agreed with her point that the information provided through this UW alcohol course was a positive thing. Even if it does not necessarily effect how much you choose to drink, I do think that it is advantageous to know about the effects alcohol can have, so you can have the knowledge if you end up needing it later.
I like how she explained the study. She gave thorough information about the procedure, the participants and the results, leading me to become confident in my understanding of the article. Her explanations also made me confident that she took the time to read the article thoroughly.
She mentioned that the alcohol intervention from the study only resulted in minor successes. I wonder what could be changed in the intervention for it to become more successful. It is an important topic, as alcoholism or unsafe amounts of alcohol consumption can have major negative effects.
The second student I responded to was a girl named Taylor, who read an article about texting intervention effects on quitting smoking.
I started off my response by thanking her for sharing her experience about someone in her life who has failed to quit smoking. I have a connection to this, as I have also seen some of my friends try to quit smoking and fail.
I really liked her explanation of the study. She provided so much information that I feel like I just read the article myself! I appreciated the time she put into reading the article and making this post, because it certainly helped me grasp the necessary information about this study.
She thought that the intervention was mostly successful, which I agreed with. Quitting smoking seems very difficult because it is addictive, but in this study, the intervention group was much more successful than the control group, even if it was not statistically significant. Even if these programs cannot dramatically improve quitting rates, even a modest change in rates would be worth it, because smoking can be so damaging to a person’s health.
I wonder if there is anything that can be changed about the study design or procedure that could raise the rates of quitting smoking even more. Maybe if the texts were sent more frequently, it could be more effective.
Reflecting on this assignment, this was the first time I completed an assignment like this in which no one read the same article as me. So, responding to two different articles was interesting, because it allowed me to learn about more studies than usual! In this case, I got to learn about alcohol intervention and smoking prevention, which are both significant and interesting topics.
Additionally, these types of assignments are cool because they allow me to interact with other students in the course that I usually do not get the chance to do that with. For example, I have never been in a chat group with Stella or Taylor, the students I responded to, or have not met them in person. So, reading about their thoughts allowed me to get to know them a little bit, through their writing styles and life examples they shared.
I also enjoy the simplicity in the steps that this assignment was made up of. It made me more motivated to complete the assignment, because there was not a long laundry list of tasks I had to worry about. And just because it was simpler does not mean that it was not valuable. I always take away a lot from these assignments, because I learn new information about other articles, and about the lives of some fellow students. I am glad that these assignments were included in many units of the course.
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