Aims and Hypotheses in research Flashcards
What is a content analysis?
Describe the contents of media in a descriptive way, e.g. television outputs
Data is recorded, classified and counted
What are descriptive studies?
Describes the characteristics and features in a topic
Difficult for research to progress effectively without this
This uses qualitative data, case studies and content analysis
What are evaluation or outcome studies?
Randomised, controlled trials
Useful for clinical treatment
Isn’t possible to assess what is producing the observed changes
Examine if an intervention has had its intended effect of causing the expected change
What is a meta analytic study?
Integrate findings in a systematic way
Analyses the results of all previous studies investigating a similar topic
Statistical trends in each study
What is the comparative method?
Hypotheses can imply a comparison between 2 groups. Unless it is implicitly stated in the hypothesis, it may not be obvious what research design to use and if it should involve 2 groups.
What is a true experiment useful for?
This is a lab experiment. This is useful for testing a hypothesis, for example its ability to randomise participants, control over variables and manipulate independent variables.
How do we generate research aims?
Interest in a particular field, review literature and identify gaps, your research should fill these gaps, the research should contribute either theoretically or practically
What is a research hypothesis?
Prediction about your results
Make a prediction before you start the experiment to avoid the replication crisis
Can have a positive or negative relationship which can describe the direction of the relationship
Can have a casual or non casual relationship, which describes the relationship between variables
What is causality?
One thing causes the other, variables are dependant
Correlation vs causation means the variables are related but one doesn’t cause the other
What are the types of hypothesis?
Directional, causal: specific direction, one variable causes an effect
Directional, non causal: a specific direction, variables are associated but one doesn’t cause the other
Non-directional, causal: Variables cause an effect but not in a specific direction
Non-directional, non casual: Variables are associated with an effect but one doesn’t cause the other and not in any specific direction
What are null and alternative hypotheses?
Alternative: predict a specific outcome
Null: prediction of no effect
In statistical tests, we test how likely our data is if the null hypothesis is true, if it isn’t true then we can accept the alternative hypothesis
How can you generate research hypotheses?
Supported by data, hypothesis can never be ‘proven’ only supported or not. If the hypothesis is tested several times and in different ways then the evidence can strengthen the hypothesis
Falsifiable
Parsimonious
