Ch. 8 Flashcards
What is the purpose of a research design?
Provide a plan/blueprint for systemically testing research questions and hypotheses.
Provides the structure for maintaining control in the study.
What is a control group in quantitative research, and what is the purpose of a control group?
Has to do with taking steps to hold conditions of the study uniform and avoid or decrease the effect of intervening, extraneous, or mediating variables not the dependent variable or outcome.
Avoids bias or threats to the internal validity of the study.
Factors involved in the feasibility of a research study? (FEEETS)
F: facility and equipment availability - are necessary equipment and facilities available?
E: expense - is money available for the projected cost?
E: experience - is the study based on the researchers experience and interest?
E: ethics - could the subject be harmed?
T: time - is there enough time?
S: subject availability - are a sufficient number of eligible subjects available?
What is a homogenous sample and what is the significance to interpreting the results of a quantitative research study? How should the reader appraise the sampling strategy of a quantitative research study?
Homogenous sample: participants are similar with respect to the possible extraneous variables relevant to the particular study
What are the advantages and disadvantages of a homogenous sample of participants?
Limits generalizability or the potential to apply the results of a study to other populations (threat to external validity)
What are the issues with extraneous variables?
They are subject, researcher, or environmental characteristics that influence the dependent variable.
Use a homogenous sample and use consistency to decrease noise.
What affects the internal validity or a study? What affects the external validity of a study? What are the threats to each? Give examples. How does the researcher address each?
Extraneous variable, intervening and mediating variable affect the validity of the study.
Internal validity
History, maturation, testing, instrumentation, mortality, selection, bias
SMMITH
Intervening and mediating variables:
process that occur during the study
External validity
Selection effects, reactive effects, measurement effects
Selection effects
What methods was used to select the sample? How were subjects assigned to groups?
Reactive effects:
Subjects response to being studied, Hawthorne effect
Measurement effect
A pretext may act like an intervention and influence or change the subjects responses
