Journal Article Critique
Echeburúa, E., & Fernández-Montalvo, J. (2008). Are there more personality disorders in treatment-seeking pathological gamblers than on other kind of patients? A comparative study between the IPDE and the MCMI.
International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology, 8(1), 53-64. Houser, R. A. (2015). Counseling and educational research: Evaluation and application (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.
Journal Article Critique
1. Echeburúa and Fernández-Montalvo (2008) clearly stated the purpose and the kind of their study by presenting two research questions they addressed. Thus, the authors specified that that they were
interested in comparing frequencies of occurrence of Personality Disorders (further, PDs) in three groups of participants: a group comprised of pathological gamblers; a group consisting of non-addict patients with other Axis I mental disorders; and a normal population group. They also expressed their interest in comparing
the concordance between the two different assessment tools they used – the International Personality Disorders Examination (further, IPDE) and the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (further, MCMI-II). It was evident from the research questions that the authors planned to use quantitative research methods in terms of quasi-experimental design, which, as Houser (2015) acknowledged, allows collecting qualitative or numerical data that can be
compared (p. 52).
2. The authors explained the relevance and value of their research by noting that only a few studies attempted to analyze the comorbid personality disorders in pathological gambling. Furthermore, the previous studies relied on participants’ self-reports, while the research under analysis was based on application of more accurate
conservative assessment tools.
3. As the analyzed study was a quasi-experimental research, it included both independent and dependent variables. According to Houser (2015), an independent variable is an “event, condition, or measured attribute or characteristic that the researcher for the most part controls” (p. 53). In this study, an independent variable, which was controlled by the researchers, had three groups to compare. The researchers formed the groups based on condition of the participants: either being pathological gamblers, non-addict patients with other Axis I mental disorders, or belonging to normal population. The PDs that the researchers found in some participants
are the independent variables, because the researchers could not control their occurrence.
4. The authors provided appropriate operational definitions to all variables as they clearly defined the conditions to be examined, the tools to be applied and the …
