Data Handling and Analysis Flashcards
What is quantitative data?
numerical data
What is qualitative data?
non-numerical data (words)
What are the strengths of quantitative data?
easy to analyse and test for a correlation or difference between two sets of data
P’s are usually happier to provide quantitative data as its quick and easy
What are the weaknesses of quantitative data?
criticised for lacking detail (e.g. we don’t know why P’s may have rated their mood as a 4/10)
What are the strengths of qualitative data?
rich in detail (e.g. we know why a person had rated their mood a 4/10)
What are the weaknesses of qualititative data?
more difficult to analyse, more time consuming for researcher (e.g. content or thematic analysis)
P’s are usually more reluctant to provide qualitative data as it is time consuming
What is primary data?
data collected by the researcher themselves for the purposes of the particular study
What is secondary data?
data collected by somebody else for the purposes of their own investigation; you use their data
What are the strengths of primary data?
suitable for the purpose of the study ‘tailor mode’
accurate; researcher knows data has come from a well-conducted experiment because they conducted it
What are the weaknesses of primary data?
time consuming
expensive to conduct experiment and collect data
What are the strengths of secondary data?
quick and easy
not as expensive as data already exists
What are the weaknesses of secondary data?
wasn’t collected for your specific study, so isn’t really suitable
research cannot be sure the data has come from a well-conducted source as they have not conducted it
What is a meta-analysis?
involves collecting data from a variety of sources and then analyzing the huge pool of data
e.g. Van Ijzendoorn did a meta-analysis on cultural variations in attachment types
What are the strengths of a meta-analysis?
because the wide stat range and more P’s, it has a high population validity and the sample is likely to be representative.
conducting a meta-analysis means that the research is much bigger than it would be if only primary data was used
What are the weaknesses of a meta-analysis?
wasn’t collected for your specific research, may not be suitable
researcher cannot be sure the data has come from a well conducted research, could be unreliable
conducting this on a huge amount of data is time consuming and complicated
What are the 3 types of measures of central tendency?
mean
mode
median
What are the 2 types of measures of dispersion?
range
standard deviation
What is mean?
the average
What is mode?
the most often
What is median?
middle number from a line up of smallest to largest
What are strengths of the mean?
all scores achieved by P’s are involved in calculation; very accurate measure
What are weaknesses of the mean?
very sensitive so is distorted by extreme values
rarely an actual score in set of data
What are strengths of the mode?
quick and easy to calculate
it is less prone to distortion by extreme values
What are weaknesses of the mode?
very crude measure of central tendency
there can be more than one mode in a set of data
