2 Non-experimental Designs

Question 1

Used when:
✓ experiment is not practical or desirable
✓ testing a hypothesis in an existing real-life situation is necessary or important
✓ you want to explore unique or rare occurrences, or to sample personal information in natural settings
o All these can provide useful data, either from single individuals or from large groups of people.

Answer 1

NON-EXPERIMENTAL APPROACHES

Question 2

o A description of an individual’s immediate experience.
o Source of data: personal experience

Answer 2

PHENOMENOLOGY

Question 3

✓ Was interested in the physiology of vision, and noticed that colours seemed to change as twilight deepened.
✓ Purkinje Effect → understanding of spectral sensitivity to colours of different wavelengths.

Answer 3

Johannes Purkinje (1787-1869)

Question 4

✓ Dealt with basic psychological issues like habits, emotions, consciousness, and stream of thoughts from the phenomenological perspective of his own experiences.
✓ Resistance of getting up inhibits our movement.
✓ “…we more often than not get up without any struggle or decision at all. We suddenly find that we have got up

Answer 4

William James

Question 5

cases of deviant and normal individuals are
compared for significant differences.
✓ Differences may have important implications for the etiology, or origin, of the psychopathology in question.

Answer 5

Deviant Case Analysis

Question 6

o Non-experimental approaches used
in the field or in real-life settings.
o Use of combined types of data
gathering to capitalize on the
richness and range of behaviour
found outside the laboratory.
o There is NO MANIPULATION of
antecedent conditions, but the
DEGREE OF CONTRAINT ON
RESPONSES VARIES considerably
form study to study

Answer 6

FIELD STUDIES

Question 7

o A descriptive research method in which already EXISTING
RECORDS are being REEXAMINED for a new purpose.
✓ Crime and death rates
✓ Educational levels
✓ Salaries
✓ Housing patterns
✓ Disease rates
o These information can be used to ANALYZE SOCIETAL TRENDS or
to gather information about population subgroups.

Answer 7

ARCHIVAL STUDIES

Question 8

✓ Studied some controversial issues about African American men — namely, documented discouragement over barriers to employment and problems with family roles — from a positive perspective.
✓ Findings: kinship bonds and religious beliefs were stronger in men who were happy in their family roles.

Answer 8

Bowman (1992)

Question 9

o Relies on WORDS rather than numbers, for the data being collected.
o Focuses on:
✓ Self-reports
✓ Personal narratives
✓ Expression of ideas, memories, feelings and thoughts
o Appears to be ON THE RISE within psychology.
o Some argue that qualitative research, or the “big-Q”, is a candidate for a PARADIGM SHIFT within psychology.
o Paradigm: the set of attitudes, values, beliefs, methods and procedures that are generally accepted within a particular discipline

Answer 9

QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

Question 10

✓ Influence of researcher’s own viewpoint in the interpretation of data.
✓ Influence of presence of researcher in the way participants would respond.
✓ Accuracy of self-reports and use of retrospective data.

Answer 10

VALIDITY

Question 11

a very important measure of its goodness

Answer 11

REPLICABILITY