Lecture 1 Flashcards
Which is the easiest qualitative strategy
Thematic analysis
Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) is
Exploring the participants lived experience of the subject by condensing material from interview into themes (key lived experience)
All 4 qualitative strategies have
Thematic analysis embedded
Epistemology refers to
A theory of knowledge
Discourse analysis is where you take up a constructionist position ie
You’re interested in the language used to talk about your subject
Basic definition of qualitative research
Uses words as data. Collected and analysed in all sorts of ways
What dies paradigm refer to
Beliefs, assumptions, values, practices shared by a research community. Provides framework for research
Qualitative research generates
Narrow but rich data with thick descriptions
Qualitative research is used as a precursor to
Quantitative research
Fundamental about qualitative research is that it does not assume
There is only one correct version of reality or knowledge but multiple
In qualitative research We must not
Consider knowledge outside of the context in which it is generated
What are 3 basic qualitative frameworks?
Searching for patterns
Looking at interaction
Looking at stories
What are two branches of philosophy concerned with science
Epistemology
Ontology
What is epistemology?
Asks questions about knowledge, beliefs and truth
What is ontology?
Asks questions about what things there are in the world
What is an entity?
Things we can physically touch
What is a representation?
Ways of conceptualising and describing entities
Realism is the view that
Our representations of things in the world are reflections of the way those things actually are.
Relativism is the view that our representations of
The things in the world are socially constructed and can’t seen as simple reflections of how those things actually are.
What is ecological validity?
How well we can generalise the results from research to situations in the real world.
Thematic analysis is where you
Condense the material into codes, minor themes and then major themes
What are the 5 tasks involved in doing psychology?
- Examining how ppl think feel behave
- Discover what influences this
- Determine consequences of this
- Explore individual perspective of meanings attached to things
- Examine how ideas events and things are represented in language and made sense of
First 3 tasks of doing psychology are what type of research method…
Quantitative
Two traditional epistemological frame works for psych are:
Positivism
Empiricism
In positivism out language reflects
What’s there (straightforward relationship)
Language is always
Representational
Empiricism is where knowledge if the world must be derived from
Facts of experience (all knowledge claims grounded in data)
Qualitative research is
Empirical (still collecting and analysing data)
An assumption of empiricism is that knowledge acquisition proceeds through
A systematic collection and classification of observations - theory generated from this.
Constructionist is based on what approach?
Qualitative
Empiricist is
All knowledge claims must be grounded in data
Empirical is
Research involving collection and analysis of data
Three criteria within positivism and empiricism are
Parsimony
Falsifiability
Heuristic value
Parsimony is
The ability to be able to explain a broad range of phenomena
Heuristic value is
Must build on existing knowledge by constantly generating hypotheses
Why is self report not a viable observation method in the scientific method?
It is contaminated by individuals own subjective biases.
Good science is
Unbiased and value free. Unaffected by the perspectives of the observer or the individual who is observed.
What is the most important method for psychology?
Experimentation
Why is experimentation the most important method for psychology?
Allows for control and manipulation of variables needed to est. causal relations btwn pairs of variables
What is also important in conducting a research study?
Replication
Why is replication important?
Allows building of causal laws by being able to see entities/phenomena that always occur together in a particular relationship
Good psychological research should always be undertaken using a
Quantitative framework - objectivity free from bias
Two debates central to critique of poppers Hypothetico-deductivism model…
Causality vs meaning
Individualism vs contextualise
Relativist social constructionism has 4 tenets:
Representations
No truth
Language
Meaning and context
