Data handling and analysis Flashcards
What are the 4 types of data?
Qualitative
Quantitative
Primary
Secondary
What is qualitative data?
What is quantitative data?
Qualitative data is non-numerical language-based data collected through interviews, open questions and content analysis. It allows researchers to develop insights into the nature of subjective experiences, opinions and feelings.
Quantitative Data is data that is in numerical form (numbers and figures).
What are the strengths and weakness of quantitative and qualitative data?
+ Can be replicated.
- Researcher imposition- leading questions- cant gain a true picture of society- low validity.
+ Can help researchers conduct statistical tests with the data.
+ In-depth data provides a bigger picture.
- Researcher bias.
What is primary data?
What is secondary data?
Primary data refers to the first-hand data gathered by the researcher himself.
Secondary data means data collected by an organisation. Surveys, observations, experiments, questionnaires, personal interviews, etc. Government publications, websites, books, journal articles, internal records etc.
What are the strengths and weakness of primary and secondary data?
+ Reliable due to standardised procedures.
- Bias.
+ Free source of data.
- Outdated- lacks historical validity.
What is qualitative data?
What is quantitative data?
Quantitative Data is data that is in numerical form (numbers and figures).
Qualitative data is non-numerical language-based data collected through interviews, open questions and content analysis. It allows researchers to develop insights into the nature of subjective experiences, opinions and feelings.
What is a meta-analysis?
A meta-analysis is where researchers combine the findings from multiple studies to draw an overall conclusion. e.g. Van Ijzendoorn and Kronnenberg (1988)
What are advantages and disadvantages of meta-analysis’?
+ Meta-analyses draw conclusions based on evidence from multiple empirical sources. Therefore, there is an increased likelihood that meta-analysis findings will be more valid than independent experimental research that forms a conclusion based on a single study’s findings.
+ Meta-analysis in research has many practical applications in psychology. For example, it can provide a reliable, precise summary of whether an intervention is effective as a treatment method.
- Researchers need to ensure the research studies they are combining into their meta-analysis are reliable and valid, as this can affect the reliability and validity of the meta-analysis.
- The studies included in the meta-analysis will likely use different research designs, raising the question of whether the data is comparable.
What is a measure of central tendency?
Tells us where the average is in a set of data. There are 3 main measures of central tendency.
What is the mean?
The statistical average. Calculated by adding up all the scores and dividing it by the number of scores.
What is the mode?
The most frequent occurring score. Calculated by a frequency count.
What is the median?
The central value of a data set. Calculated by putting all data scores in order and finding the middle value.
What are the strengths and weaknesses of the mean?
+ The most sensitive measure of central tendency, taking ALL scores into account.
- Can’t be used with nominal data.
What are the strengths and weaknesses of the mode?
+ Unaffected by extreme scores, useful for discrete data and can be used with nominal data.
- Can be unrepresentative with extreme scores.
- Doesn’t take all the scores in the data set into consideration.
What are the strengths and weaknesses of the median?
+ Unaffected by extreme scores and can be used on ordinal data.
- Only takes into consideration the middle number or two middle numbers. (unrepresentative)
What does measures of dispersion tell us?
Describes the spread of the data ( or its variation around a central value)
What are two measures of dispersion?
Range
Standard deviation
What does standard deviation measure?
Measures how widely spread the values in a set of data are around the mean.