Empirical methods exam Flashcards
Induction and Deduction
Data collection in the field of empiricism
▪ From these data researchers extract general
statements (theory) by induction.
▪ From theory, in turn, statements about single
cases can be derived by using deduction.
Finding a Research Question - Inductive
Finding a Research Question - Deductive + I & D reasoning
Inductive reasoning
Specific observation -> Pattern recognition -> General conclusion
What is Research Design?
Research Criteria
Correlational Research
The goal of correlational research is to determine whether two or
more variables are related.
Experimental Design
Experimental research involves comparing two groups on one outcome
measure to test some hypothesis regarding causation
Types of experimental Research Designs
Cross sectional
Descriptive Statistics: Graphic representation of data
Descriptive statistics is the idea of quantitatively describing data and you can do that through various means. For example, through visualization techniques like: * graphical representation * tabular representation * summary statistics The idea here is that you crunch the data, you work with the data and come up with (1 or 2 or 3 or 4) different numbers that summarized the data for you.
Bar graph
There are dozens of charts and graphs you can make from data. * Which one you choose depends on what kind of data you have and what you want to display. * If you wanted to display relationships between data in categories, you could make a bar graph
Histograms
Pie chart
shows how categories in your data relate to the whole set
Scatter plots
Scatter plots are a good way to display data points. * It shows the relationship between two variables * The position of each dot on the horizontal and vertical axis indicates values for an individual data point * The dots in a scatter plot report patterns when the data are taken as a whole.
Why are descriptive statistics important?
Basic Concepts of Descriptive Statistics
Measures of central tendency
A measure of central tendency (also referred to as measures of centre or central location): * Is a summary measure that attempts to describe a whole set of data with a single value that represents the middle or centre of its distribution. There are three main measures of central tendency: −the mode, the median and the mean. Each of these measures describes a different indication of the typical or central value in the distribution.
Mean
Median
Mode
Shapes of Distributions - Peaks
Graphs often display peaks, or local maximums. It can be seen from the graph that the data count is visibly higher in certain sections of the graph. 1. one clear peak is called a unimodal distribution. 2. two clear peaks are called a bimodal distribution. Here, the term “mode” is used to describe a local maximum in a chart (such as the midpoint of a peak interval in a histogram). It does not necessarily refer to the most frequently appearing score, as in the “central tendency mode”. * Single peak at the center is called bell shaped distribution. Note: A bell shaped graph (bell curve), is a frequency distribution that resembles the outline of a bell when plotted on a graph
What is a Distribution?
The statistical distribution shows which values are common and uncommon in your data * A statistical distribution, or probability distribution, describes how values are distributed for a field * There are many kinds of statistical distributions, including the bell-shaped normal distribution. * We use a statistical distribution to determine how likely a particular value is.
Shapes of Distributions
When graphed, the data in a set is arranged to show how the points are distributed throughout the set. * These distributions show the spread (dispersion, variability, scatter) of the data. * The spread may be stretched (covering a wider range) or squeezed (covering a narrower range). * The shape of a distribution is described by its number of peaks and by its possession of symmetry, its tendency to skew, or its uniformity. * Distributions that are skewed have more points plotted on one side of the graph than on the other.