Chapter 4: Research Design Fundamentals Flashcards
What do research ideas and studies focus on?
variables
What are variables?
any event, situation, behaviour or individual characteristic that can vary in some way; can be quantitative or qualitative
What are the different types of variables?
- situational variables
- response variables
- participant variables
What are situational variables?
feature of event/environment participant is exposed to
What are response variables?
participant’s reaction to event/experience
What are participant variables?
pre-existing characteristic of a participant
What does it mean to operationally define veriables?
specifies the operation(s) or technique(s) that will be used in a particular study to represent that variable
What do operational definitions inform?
- measurement
- predictions
- research design
Why is operationally defining variables of interest important for the specific hypothesis?
to make a directional prediction and outcome and also helps know how to measure variables and choose a research design
What are basic research designs?
- non-experimental designs
- experimental designs
What influences what research design to choose?
- operational definitions
- specific hypothesis/prediction
- what kind of conclusion (causal or not)
What are non-experimental methods?
- determining the relationship(s) between variables
- correlational methods
- variables are measured/observed
What are advantages of non-experimental designs?
- can establish trends across large amounts of data
- good for describing behaviour
- can be used to predict future behaviour
- sometimes necessary due to ethical issues
What are disadvantages of non-experimental designs?
- direction of causal influence
- third-variable problem
What are experimental methods?
- determine causal influence between variables
- one variable manipulated, one variable measure
What is an independent variable (IV)?
the variable that “causes” changes in behaviour and is manipulated/controlled by researcher
What is a dependent variable (DV)?
- the variable that is affected by changes in the IV
- changes in DV depend on changes in IV
- measured by the researcher
What is the criteria for experiments to allow for causal influences?
- temporal precedence
- IV and DV covary
- eliminate alternative explanations
What does it mean when all 3 criteria for experiments are met?
internal validity: the degree to which experiment’s design allows for causal conclusions
What are advantages of experimental designs?
- answer questions about causes of behaviour
- high internal validity
- more experimental control
What are disadvantages of experimental designs?
- lack of external validity
- sometimes ethically impossibl
