Chapter 4: Research Design Fundamentals Flashcards
(21 cards)
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
