Chapter 4: Research Design Fundamentals

Question 1

What do research ideas and studies focus on?

Answer 1

variables

Question 2

What are variables?

Answer 2

any event, situation, behaviour or individual characteristic that can vary in some way; can be quantitative or qualitative

Question 3

What are the different types of variables?

Answer 3

• situational variables
• response variables
• participant variables

Question 4

What are situational variables?

Answer 4

feature of event/environment participant is exposed to

Question 5

What are response variables?

Answer 5

participant’s reaction to event/experience

Question 6

What are participant variables?

Answer 6

pre-existing characteristic of a participant

Question 7

What does it mean to operationally define veriables?

Answer 7

specifies the operation(s) or technique(s) that will be used in a particular study to represent that variable

Question 8

What do operational definitions inform?

Answer 8

• measurement
• predictions
• research design

Question 9

Why is operationally defining variables of interest important for the specific hypothesis?

Answer 9

to make a directional prediction and outcome and also helps know how to measure variables and choose a research design

Question 10

What are basic research designs?

Answer 10

• non-experimental designs
• experimental designs

Question 11

What influences what research design to choose?

Answer 11

• operational definitions
• specific hypothesis/prediction
• what kind of conclusion (causal or not)

Question 12

What are non-experimental methods?

Answer 12

• determining the relationship(s) between variables
• correlational methods
• variables are measured/observed

Question 13

What are advantages of non-experimental designs?

Answer 13

• 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

Question 14

What are disadvantages of non-experimental designs?

Answer 14

• direction of causal influence
• third-variable problem

Question 15

What are experimental methods?

Answer 15

• determine causal influence between variables
• one variable manipulated, one variable measure

Question 16

What is an independent variable (IV)?

Answer 16

the variable that “causes” changes in behaviour and is manipulated/controlled by researcher

Question 17

What is a dependent variable (DV)?

Answer 17

• the variable that is affected by changes in the IV
• changes in DV depend on changes in IV
• measured by the researcher

Question 18

What is the criteria for experiments to allow for causal influences?

Answer 18

• temporal precedence
• IV and DV covary
• eliminate alternative explanations

Question 19

What does it mean when all 3 criteria for experiments are met?

Answer 19

internal validity: the degree to which experiment’s design allows for causal conclusions

Question 20

What are advantages of experimental designs?

Answer 20

• answer questions about causes of behaviour
• high internal validity
• more experimental control

Question 21

What are disadvantages of experimental designs?

Answer 21

• lack of external validity
• sometimes ethically impossibl