Data Analysis Flashcards
What are primary sources
Information collected or observed first hand by the researcher specifically to meet the aim of their research.
What are secondary sources
Information in a study that was collected by someone else for a purpose other than the current study
Strengths of primary sources
- rich in detail
- good quality
- meets aims of study
Weaknesses of primary sources
-Time and effort - researcher must collect data before analysis can happen
- more expensive due to more time/recourses
- design, collection and analysis needs to be done by researcher
Strengths of secondary sources
- less time/ effort - no research needs to be done
- cheaper
Weaknesses of secondary sources
- data may not fit the exact aims of the study
- poor quality data = poor quality conclusions
What is qualitative data
Non-numerical - info in words that cannot be quantified eg descriptions
What is quantitive data
Numerical data - behaviour is measured in numbers or quantities e.g how much/how long
Strengths of qualitative data
-provides detailed info
- greater insight into behaviour
- draw meaningful conclusions
Weaknesses of qualitative data
- hard to draw simple conclusions/analyse
- difficult to present graphically
- bias as its open to interpretation - unscientific
What is the acronym for choosing a statistical test
I - independent groups
Really - related data
Could - correlation
Not - nominal
Calculate - chi-squared test
Sums - sign test
On - ordinal
Monday - Mann Whitney u
Without - Wilcoxon
Smiling - spearman’s rho
What is the probability used in psychology
0.05 - 5%
When may you need to use a smaller probability of 1%/0.01
Drug testing/sensitive impactful issues
If findings are significant what must you do ?
Accept the alternative hypothesis and reject the null hypothesis
If findings are non significant you must ?
Accept the null hypothesis and reject the alternative hypothesis
What are the two values you need to determine the significance
Observer and critical
All the types of graphical representation
Frequency table
Bar chart
Histogram
Line graph
Pie chart
Scatter diagram
What is normal distribution and features
Also known as bell shaped curve
Its features is the mean, median and mode are all at the exact mid point
The distribution is symmetrical around the midpoint
What is skewed distribution
Occurs where there are extreme scores in a data set
When do we get positively skewed data
There are a few extreme high scores which affects the mean
The mean is always higher than the median and mode in a positive skew