Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Research Flashcards
What is research design?
A plan for the collection, measurement, and analysis of data.
Overview of Experimental Research
- Truth seeking
- Often uses quantitative methods
- Deductive approach
- A priori questions or hypotheses based on literature
- Attempts to produce reliable, valid and replicable results
What are the planning stages of a research project?
- Identify the issue or question of interest
- Review relevant literature and theories
- Develop questions and hypotheses
- Identify the dependent and independent variables
What are the operating stages of a research project?
- Conduct the study
- Use descriptive statistics to describe data
- Use inferential statistics to evaluate statistical hypotheses
- Accept or reject hypotheses
- Prepare formal report for publication or presentation
What are inferential statistics?
Use the information to determine if there is cause and effect between the variables.
Literature Review
- What are the sources?
- Theories relevant for topic?
- What kinds of research methods used?
- Dominant authors in the field?
- Subject too broad – how to narrow?
- Gap in research?
Research Questions
- Based on literature – thus connected to theory
- Every word counts
- End with a question mark
- Express relationship between variables
- Stated in unambiguous terms
- Open-ended
Types of Research Questions
- Descriptive
- Normative
- Correlative
- Impact
What are descriptive questions?
- Describe the problem
- What is happening?
What are normative questions?
There is a norm (benchmark) that you compare your problem with
- you can take your company and compare it to the industry standards
What are correlative questions?
- What is the relationship between X & Y?
- There is no causal link, but they are correlated
What are impact questions?
- What impact/effect does a change in X have on Y?
- We look at the causal relationship
What is a hypothesis?
A speculative statement of the relation between two or more variables
What are the characteristics of a hypothesis?
- Good hypotheses should contain a statement containing two or more variables that are capable of measurement
- Can be tested
- Based on literature
- Predictive
- Should not be a value statement
What are variables?
- Variables are the building blocks of research questions and hypotheses
- A property that can take different values.
Operationally Defining Variables
- How do we define and measure the variables?
- Give meaning to a construct or a variable by setting out the activities or ‘operations’ that are necessary to measure it
How does operationally defining variables help?
- Research questions and hypotheses will be general and vague otherwise
- Allows us to rethink assumptions, rewrite original research question(s).
Intervening Variables
- Independent variable acts only indirectly via another variable
- Relationship between variables may be of association but not necessarily causality
Extraneous Variables
- Other factors at play which might influence dependent variable
- Must be ‘controlled for’
How do we control for extraneous variables?
- Elimination
- Randomization - experimental groups equal in terms of all variables
What is validity?
Measuring what you intend to measure
What is reliability?
Measuring consistently
- Should give same results when done on different days and by different researchers
What are the 8 types of validity?
- Face
- Internal
- External
- Criterion
- Construct,
- Content
- Predictive
- Statistical validity
What is Face validity?
The instrument at least appears to measure what it was designed to measure.
What is Internal Validity?
Refers to correlation questions and to the extent to which causal conclusions can be drawn.
What is External validity?
The extent to which it is possible to generalize from the relationships found in the data within the sample’s experimental subjects to a larger population.
What is Criterion validity?
We compare how people have answered a new measure of a concept, with existing, widely accepted measures of a concept.
What is Construct validity?
Construct validity is concerned with the measurement of abstract concepts and traits.
What is Content validity?
Content validity is associated with validating the content of a test or examination.
What is Predictive validity?
Shows how well a test can forecast a future trait.
What is Statistical validity?
This is the extent to which a study has made use of the appropriate design and statistical
methods.
What are the 5 types of reliability?
- Stability
- Equivalence
- Internal reliability
- Inter-Judge reliability
- Intra-Judge reliability
What is Stability?
This measures the scores achieved on the same test on two different occasions.
- Any difference is called subject error.
What is Equivalence?
Comparing the responses of a set of subjects with responses made by the same set of subjects on another instrument (preferably on the same day).
What is Internal Reliability?
This measures the extent to which a test or questionnaire is homogenous.
What is Inter-Judge Reliability?
Inter-judge reliability compares the consistency of observations when more than one person is judging.
What is Intra-Judge Reliability?
Where a large amount of data has been collected by a researcher over time the consistency of observations or scores can be checked by taking a sample set of observations or scores and repeating them.
