Data Handling: Types, Display of Data And Distibution

Question 1

Qualitative data

Answer 1

• expressed in words, rather than numbers or statistics
• May take the form of a written description of the thoughts, feelings and opinions of participants
  -Could be a written account of what the researcher saw in an observation
• Qualitative methods of data collection are those that are concerned with the interpretation of language from, for example, an interview or an unstructured observation
  ✅ more detail and broader scope so greater external validity
  ❌ difficult to analyse
  ❌ subjective interpretations

Question 2

Quantitative data

Answer 2

• data expressed numerically
• Quantitative data collection techniques usually gather numerical data in the form of individual scores from participants such as the number of words a person was able to recall in a memory experiment
• Data is open to being analysed statistically and can be easily converted into graphs, charts etc.
  ✅ simple to analyse
  ✅ more objective and less open to bias
  ❌ narrower in meaning and detail

Question 3

Primary data

Answer 3

• Sometimes called field research
• Refers to original data that has been collected specifically for the purpose of the investigation by the researcher
• It is data that arrives first-hand from the participants themselves
• Data which is gathered by conducting an experiment, questionnaire, interview or observation would be classed as primary data
  ✅ authentic data that fits the purpose, specifically targeted
  ❌ time consuming and expensive

Question 4

Secondary data

Answer 4

• Data that has been collected by someone other than the person who is conducting the research
• Data that already exists before the psychologist begins their research or investigation
• Sometimes referred to as ‘desk research and it is often the case that secondary data has already been subject to statistical testing ano herefore the significance is already known
• Data could be located in journal articles, books or websites
• Statistical information held by the government, population records or employee absence records within an organisation are all examples of secondary data
  ✅ inexpensive and easily accessed
  ❌ variation in the quality and accuracy of the data lowering the validity

Question 5

Displaying data: summarising in a table

Answer 5

• there are various ways of representing data, one of these is in the form of a summary table
• It is important to note that when tables appear in the results section of a report they are not the raw data but instead have already been converted to descriptive statistics eg. mean or standard deviation
• It is standard practice to include a summary paragraph beneath the table explaining the results

Question 6

Displaying data: bar charts

Answer 6

• data can be represented visually using a suitable graphical display so the difference in mean values can easily be seen
• the most suitabie graph in this case is a bar chart
• bar charts are used when data is divided into categories otherwise known as discrete data
• bars are separated on a bar chart to denote that we are dealing with separate conditions

Question 7

Displaying data: scatter grams

Answer 7

• scatter grams do not depict differences but asociations between co variables
• either of the co variables occupies the x axis and the other on the y axis (it does not matter which) and each point on the graph corresponds to the X and Y position of the co variables

Question 8

Displaying data: histograms

Answer 8

• The bar touch each other which shows that the date is continuous
• The X axis is made up of equal size intervals of a single category
• The Y axis represents the frequency within each interval

Question 9

Displaying data: line graphs

Answer 9

• Line graphs also represent continuous data and use points connected by line to show how something changes in value
• The independent variable is usually plotted on the X axis of the dependent variable on the Y axis

Question 10

Negatively (left) skewed distribution

Answer 10

• where most of the distribution is concentrated towards the right leaving a long tail on the left
• A very easy test would produce this as the bulk of the scores are higher
• The mean is pulled to the left due to the extreme lower scores who are in the minority
• The mean is the lowest, then the median, then the mode is the highest.

Question 11

Positively (right) skewed distribution

Answer 11

• where most of the distribution is concentrated towards the left leaving a long tail on the right
• A very difficult test would produce this as the bulk of the scores are lower
• The mean is pulled to the right due to the extreme higher scores who are in the minority
• The mode is the lowest, then the median, then the mean is the highest.

Question 12

Normal distribution

Answer 12

• when measuring certain variables e.g. height
• the frequency should form a bell shaped curve
• Most people located in the middle area few are at the extreme ends
• Mean, median and mode all occupy the same midpoint
• never touch the X axis as theoretically more extreme scores are always possible