Lifestyle Analysis Flashcards
What is the definition of validity?
Relates to whether you’re actually measuring what you planned to measure
External & internal validity
What is the definition of internal validity?
Whether results of study can be attributed to different treatments in study
For research to claim IV, you need to ensure you’ve controlled everything that could affect results of study
What is the definition of external validity?
Whether or not results of study can be applied to real world
What is inter-researcher reliability?
Examines wether different researchers in same situation would get same/similar results
Inter-researcher reliability is a problem in body composition assessment - when people learning to use skin fold calpier technique its difficult to take accurate measurements from correct sites
Thus, researchers come up with different & varying values - you can’t claim inter-researcher reliability
What is test-retest reliability?
Doing same test on different occasions & getting same/similar results
Problem comes measuring HR:
Can be affected by many factors - temperature, diet, time of day, sleep patterns, etc.
If you measure HR on same person in same time of day, but on different days, you could get different measurements
What is the definition of accuracy?
How close your measurement is to ‘gold standard’ or what you’re intending to measure
E.g. boxer has actual weight of 100kg & your weighing device shows 100.1kg, that’s accurate
However, if it shows 103kg, its inaccurate
What is the definition of precision?
When working in research setting, any measurement you take will have some unpredictability
Degree of unpredictability relates to amount of precision tool selected for measurement has
Precision relates to refinement of measuring process & closely related to reliability
What are the advantages of interviews?
Participants can express their views in their own words
Participants can provide info from won’t perspective
Unexpected data may come out in interview
Body language, tone, pitch of voice & speed of speech can be assessed
Researcher can establish rapport with participant & investigate target groups
What are the disadvantages of interview?
They require more resources & more time-consuming than using questionnaires
Use small sample sizes as interviews time-consuming
Participant can take interview off in number of directions
Data analysis more difficult & takes longer than using directions
Quality of data dependent on quality of questioning & quality of responses
What are the advantages of observations?
Observations can be ‘here & now’ rather than being dependent on recall
Can take place in natural settings rather than research settings
Allow for identification of behaviours that may not be apparent to person & may not been discovered through interviews
Allow for identification of behaviour that person may not wish to disclose
What are the disadvantages of observations?
There’s potential for researcher to misunderstand what they’re seeing
Difficult to identify & record correct type of data
Hawthorne effect: Person knows they’re subject of research, they may act differently & could invalidate whole project - researcher must be very careful exactly how they approach people in observational research
What are the advantages of questionnaires?
They’re people-friendly in form designed correctly
Opportunity to reduce participant bias
Participant can be anonymous
Data is structure
Usually accessible to most people
What are the disadvantages of disadvantages?
Questions can be too complex if form designed incorrectly
Control issues
No opportunities for probing questions
Potential for low response rate
