Chapter 5- Method Section Flashcards
What is the purpose of the method section?
- Describes who or what has been studied, the
materials that were employed, and how those
materials were used to obtain useful data. - Helps reader identify research strategy being
reported and the specific design incorporated.
What is the purpose of the method section?
- Describes who or what has been studied, the
materials that were employed, and how those
materials were used to obtain useful data. - Helps reader identify research strategy being
reported and the specific design incorporated.
What are the three major components of the Method Section?
- Subjects/participants
- Materials
- Procedure
T/F: subjects or participants are somewhat interchangeable?
true
What does the term, biological sex refer to?
categorical attribute
What does the term, gender refer to?
a role
What is the definition of “population”?
any group of individuals in which the researcher is ultimately interested.
What is the definition of “sample size”?
Usually we only looks at a sample and generalize to the whole group by inference.
What are the factors of sample size?
purpose of the study, previous
research, concerns about generalization, variability of
attributes being investigated, and research design.
What is the selection criteria?
- Need sufficient description to replicate it.
What are the three major components of the Method Section?
- Subjects/participants
- Materials
- Procedure
T/F: subjects or participants are somewhat interchangeable?
true
What does the term, biological sex refer to?
categorical attribute
What does the term, gender refer to?
a role
What is the definition of “population”?
any group of individuals in which the researcher is ultimately interested.
What is the definition of “sample size”?
Usually we only looks at a sample and generalize to the whole group by inference.
What are the factors of sample size?
purpose of the study, previous
research, concerns about generalization, variability of
attributes being investigated, and research design.
What is the selection criteria?
- Need sufficient description to replicate it.
What are the 3 basic “ethical” principles of the protection of subjects?
- Respect for persons – honor individual’s decisions.
- Beneficence – maximize benefit and minimize harm.
- Justice – selection of individuals be fair and unbiased.
What does IRB stand for? What is it?
- Institutional Review Board (IRB)
- Studies must gain approval of IRB.
- Sometimes referred to as “Human Subjects” but
includes animals as well.
What is privacy?
Control of access
(Longer definition which was on a different slide) –
- an individual’s ability to control when and under what conditions others will have access to
personal information.
What is confidentiality?
Ability to connect back to individual identity
(Longer definition from another slide) –
- ability of other people to tie specific information or data to a given individual.
T/F: Informed consent is the cornerstone of ethical research?
true
What should informed consent include?
- A statement that the study involves research and an explanation of the purpose of the research.
- A description of the materials to be used; the procedures to be followed, and the expected duration.
- A description of the risks posed by the procedure and any discomfort that might be experienced.
- A description of any potential benefit for them and others.
- A statement about the privacy and degree of confidentiality that will be maintained.
- Identification of the researcher responsible for the research, along with information about whom to contact with any questions,
comments, or concerns about the conduct of the study. - A statement that participation is voluntary, and that consent can be withdrawn at any time during the study, for any reason, without
penalty.
What must we abide by when looking at subjects/participants?
HIPAA
ASHA code of ethics
Regardless of the sequence of presentation of headings in
all articles, What are the two basic evaluation questions that need to be answered?
- Was there adequate selection and measurement of the independent (classification, predictor) variable?
- Was there adequate selection and measurement of the dependent (criterion, predicted) variable?
What do measurements consist of?
rules for assigning numbers
to objects in such a way as to represent quantities of
attributes.
What is instrumentation?
hardware, electronic equipment, and transducers.
What are 3 types of measurement devices?
- calipers,
- rulers,
- and timing instruments.
What are 3 types of behavioral instruments?
- tests,
- surveys,
- and questionnaires
What are the levels of measurement in the materials portion?
- Nominal
- Ordinal
- Interval
- Ratio
What is nominal?
mutually exclusive i.e. pass/fail
What is ordinal?
mutually exclusive and ranking i.e. mild, moderate and severe.
What is Interval?
all of the above and equivalence of units i.e. standard scores on tests.
What is Ratio?
All of the above and equivalence of units and a true zero point.
Within materials, what is reliability?
- Reliability = repeatability .
- Consistency, dependability, reproducibility, or stability.
What are the validity of measurements?
Truthfulness of the measure.
T/F: Validity is defined as the ‘degree’ to which is measures what it purports to measure.
true
T/F: A reliable measure may be quite repeatable or precise
but may not be true or correct?
True
What are the 3 types of validity’s?
- Content validity
- Criterion validity
- Construct validity
What is content validity?
logical examination of the content of the test items to see how well they sample the behavior
or characteristic to be measured.
What is Criterion validity?
- established by empirical examination of how well the measure correlates with some outside validating criteria.
- Cut off score.
What is construct validity?
the degree the instrument measures reflect a trait or construct.
What is concurrent validity?
two measures measure the same
content (and construct).
What is predictive validity?
measure is used to predict some
future behavior i.e. screening tools, GRE as a predictor for success in grad school.
What is the definition of a procedure?
Describe what is done to the subjects with the
materials.
What are the components of the procedure?
- Tasks & protocols
- Appropriateness of measurements
- Data analysis
What is included in tasks & protocols?
- Test environment
- Subject instructions
- Observer bias
Within Tasks & protocols:
What is the research protocol?
- The sequence of tasks
performed by the subjects, manipulations of the IVs, and the subsequent measurement of change in the DV. - Step by step description of each component.
Within Tasks & protocols:
What is test environment?
- Needs to be controlled.
- (Environment) may be important in determining the internal validity of the study by assessing the degree to which the environment affects the measurements made.
- Also important in determining external validity of the results in regard to generalizing to other settings.
Within Tasks & protocols:
What must subject instructions be?
- clear and concise.
- Free of ambiguity.
Within the tasks & protocols:
What is observer bias?
has to do with variability among individuals/researchers acting as judges or raters.
What is non-interactional tasks & protocol?
occurs when the researcher’s behavior affects recording of subject responses. Think of testing, too.
What is interactional tasks & protocols?
interactions with the subject affect changes the subjects behavior.
Within the tasks & protocols:
What is appropriateness of measurements?
- Assuming the instruments used to provide reliable and
valid measurements of the variables - the reader should
be concerned about the appropriateness of the
measurements.
Within tasks & protocol:
What is data analysis?
- A statement on how the data are organized and Analyzed (statistical processing, etc).
