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.
