Ch 4: Research Methods Flashcards
What is evidence-based practice and why is it important?
- based on scientific method
- scientist-practitioners trained to do research as well as to apply knowledge derived from research
- basing decisions on replicated research findings wherever possible
What is eminence-based practice?
- practice based on tradition and authority
- is susceptible to common errors in thinking
What are the common errors in thinking?
- faulty reasoning
- false dilemma
- golden mean fallacy
- straw person argument
- affirming the consequent
- appeal to ignorance
What is faulty reasoning?
- inaccurate or misleading argument
What is false dilemma?
- reducing range of options to two (often extreme) options
What is golden mean fallacy?
- assuming the most valid conclusion is a compromise of two competing positions
What is straw person argument?
- mischaracterizing a position to make it look absurd
What is affirming the consequent?
- assuming a condition is present because its outcome is observed
What is appeal to ignorance?
- if there is no refuting evidence, the position must be true
What is an example of evidence vs eminence-based practice for treatment of OCD?
- eminence-based practice: thought stopping, yelling stop when intrusive thoughts occur
- evidence-based practice: exposure and response prevention by thinking about the thought cognitively or replace with physical behaviour such as tapping
What is the scientific approach to problems?
- formulating a hypothesis by observations, theory and previous research
- testing the hypothesis by data and analysis
- acting on best evidence based on conclusions
What is the difference between formulating a hypothesis through research/theory vs practice?
- research/theory: generally deductive and sourced from previous research and theory
- practice: generally inductive and sourced from everyday/professional experience and addresses applied problems/needs
What are the steps in designing research studies?
- develop general research idea
- conduct search of published research
- formalize ideas into hypotheses
- consider cultural assumptions that will limit applicability
- consider ethical issues
- sketch out study procedure
What are the APA Ethical Principles for Research and Publication?
- outline necessary considerations for conducting research integrity
- informed consent and deception
- humane care and use of animals
- reporting research results and sharing data
- Research Ethics Board approval is mandatory in Canada
What factors does the research design depend on?
- state of knowledge
- question to be addressed (exploratory vs. confirmatory)
- frequency of the phenomenon under the study (a rare phenomenon will make it difficult to obtain a large sample for sufficient statistical power)
What is internal validity?
- extent to which interpretations from a study can be justified and alternative explanations ruled out
- controlled, laboratory and experimental
- efficacy studies
What is external validity?
- extent to which findings from a study can be generalized
- naturalistic, real-world, and confirmatory
- effectiveness studies
What are efficacy studies?
- determine if an intervention produces an expected result under ideal circumstances
What are effectiveness studies?
- measure the degree of beneficial effects under real world conditions
What are the challenges in research?
- balancing internal and external validity
- managing threates to validity
- trying to resolve discrepancies
- openness to unexpected results
What are the threats to internal validity?
- history
- maturation
- testing
- instrumentation
- statistical regression
- selection biases
- attrition
What are the threats to external validity?
- sample characteristics
- stimulus characteristics and settings
- reactivity of research arrangements
- reactivity of assessment
- timing of measurement
What are case studies important for? What kind of design is usually used?
- present individual to illustrate new observation or treatment
- initial testing ground for innovative assessment or intervention strategies
- AB or ABA design
What is the most commonly used research design in clinical psychology?
- correlational design
- (which is not the same as correlational analysis)
What is factor analysis?
- often used in developing measures to determine which items contribute meaningfully to the test
What is a quasi-experimental design?
- involve manipulation but not random assignment
- may be confounding effects
- in most cases not ethical or feasible to randomly assign participants
What are experimental designs referred to as?
- randomized controlled trials since participants are randomly assigned to conditions manipulated
What are experimental designs?
- all participants are assessed before and after the intervention period
- most rigorous and greatest protection against threats to validity
- usually offer no-treatment group opportunity
What is a moderator?
- variable that influences the strength of the relation between a predictor and criterion variable
- ex. strength of effect of treatment moderated by age
- like a volume dial
What is a mediator?
- variable that explains the mechanism by which a predictor influences a criterion variable
- like a plug
What is important to consider when selecting research participants?
- optimize fit between population and the sample
- important to describe characteristics of participants and how they were recruited
What are probability and non-probability samples?
- probability: matching the same percentage of gender for example
- non-probability: more random
What types of measures are there?
- self-report
- rating by someone else
- interviews
- performance on test
- projective measure
- archival data
What are the psychometric properties?
- reliability
- validity
What is clinical significance?
- results of a study are of a magnitude that there are changes in some aspects of participants’ daily functioning
- non-statistical
- qualitative and important
What are systematic reviews?
- involve use of set of methods to identify, select and critically appraise research studies
