When responding to your peers, consider the operationalization of the variables:

• Is this sound logic?
• Are the variables correctly labeled?

Peer one below.

The topic I have decided to explore is the effects of a Mediterranean diet on cognitive abilities. A Mediterranean diet that is one that:

"Emphasizes vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans legumes; includes low-fat or fat-free dairy products, fish, poultry, non-tropical vegetable oils and nuts; and limits added sugars, sugary beverages, sodium, highly processed foods, refined carbohydrates, saturated fats, and fatty or processed meats" (American Heart Association, 2020).

The two variables in this study will be diet, the independent variable that will be adjusted depending on the group, and cognitive abilities, the dependent variable that will hopefully change based on diet manipulation. When I reference 'cognitive abilities', I am talking about the ones we discuss often in psychology. These are memory recall, problem solving, and attention specifically, although there are many more (Cherry, 2023). In order to measure, or operationalize, the diet variable, participants will have to be broken into two groups. One will change their diets to an outlined Mediterranean diet, while the other, the control, will not change their dietary habits. It will be important that participants are asked to "complete a" questionnaire about their dietary habits beforehand. Participants in the control should not already be strictly following a Mediterranean diet. As for the cognition variable, participants will need to complete tests for memory, attention, and problem-solving. Participants in both groups should complete a baseline assessment of such abilities before the trials begin and periodically, perhaps over six month periods or one year periods, to collect data as diets continue, as well as a final assessment after trials are complete.

One ethical concern for this research would be subjecting humans to a highly-processed diet which has been known to cause lasting health problems, thus why I was unsure of adding a third group in testing that would be following such a diet. Another concern is the accessibility of such a diet. Marginalized and low-income groups tend to live in neighborhoods where access to food is limited (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, n.d.). However, we do not want to exclude these groups from the study simply because they cannot afford a Mediterranean diet. Weekly food stipends may be a way around this. These groups should also not be target to be in the control group, selection must be randomized.

Peer two below.

Research Question: How do lifestyle factors, such as diet, exercise, and screen time, interact with sleep quality and duration, and what are the implications for overall health and well-being? The independent variables in this study would be diet, social media exposure, exercise, and sleep time. The dependent variables would be sleep quality, sleep duration, general overall health, and well-being. Time will play a large part in the research, as this will be the best way to measure how the independent variables affect the dependent variables. I will measure the amount of time each participant spends on social media per day, the amount of time they spend on their feet or exercising, the foods they eat, and the amount of time they sleep each night. While an observational study would create the most accurate results, this will be a study where questions are asked and answered. Potential ethical errors could include but are not limited to the manipulation of results, failing to receive consent from all participants, and conducting the research in a way that negatively affects the participants. (Koocher, G. P., & Keith-Spiegel, P. (2016)