Methodology

Participants will be undergraduate students enrolled at Southern Utah University. They will be recruited based on faculty availability to allow the researcher to teach for a given week. Participation will be voluntary but will count toward class participation for the week and act as an incentive to engage in the workshop. A total sample of 52 students (N = 52) is planned in accordance with a priori power analysis. Assuming a moderate effect size (d = 0.40), an alpha of 0.05 (α = 0.05), and a desired statistical power of 0.80, the analysis calculates the aforementioned sample size for my participants using a paired-samples t-test. The statistical power is congruent with Cohen’s recommendations (Cohen, 1992), and the effect size is consistent with prior research in implementation intentions, which is usually between 0.40–0.50. The study will use a within-subjects experimental design examining whether discussion and utilization of implementation intentions influence participants’ homework completion rates. Participants will be tasked with completing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) homework assignments throughout the workshop period and compared across two conditions: the baseline condition without implementation intentions and the intervention condition utilizing implementation intentions. The baseline and intervention conditions will be measured across three workshop sessions. The first day will be the baseline condition, consisting of an introduction to CBT and its philosophies, as well as assigned homework. The second day will be the intervention condition, where participants will continue receiving instruction on the CBT framework and conclude with instruction on implementation intentions for homework completion. To foster this, an additional worksheet will be provided to construct “if–then” encoding methods (e.g., “If situation Y occurs, then I will do behavior X.”) to determine if implementation intentions assist in completing the CBT homework assignments. On the final day, the researcher will give a follow-up and debrief about the purpose of the workshop and the goal of determining the influence of implementation intentions on homework completion. During this final workshop session, participants will also provide qualitative feedback regarding their reasoning in completing the CBT homework assignments. To measure homework completion rate, the calculated average for “homework assignments turned in” will be compared across workshop days one and two. Measures will also include self-reported effort in the homework assignments and qualitative observations on effort coded between multiple researchers (e.g., length of responses, following instructions). The averages will then be compared with a paired-samples t-test to determine significance across conditions. This analysis will be evaluated using an alpha level of 0.05. Effect sizes and confidence intervals will be reported alongside significance to improve interpretation of results and represent the impact of the intervention condition.