Midterm 2 - Chpt. 7 Flashcards
You might need to ask your Ps some questions - why? (4)
- to analyze & understand trends
- for correlational research
- as the DV in an experiment
- as a manipulation check in an experiment
What kind of information might you need to find out from Ps? (3)
□ ₋ Attitudes and beliefs
□ ₋ Facts and demographics
□ ₋ Behavioral frequencies
Simplicity (Question wording considerations)
avoid jargon, abbreviations, complexity!
Double-barreled questions (Question wording considerations)
EX: Do you support free tuition and reduced healthcare?
- Do you feel anxious and depressed when thinking about exams?
Loaded Questions (Question wording considerations)
Are you in favor of having your terrific instructor Mark Lam teach another term of fun-filled 217?
Negative Wording (Question wording considerations)
Do you agree that the City of Vancouver should not allow the homeless to camp on the streets?
Creating Q’s - Question validity:
Does the question assess what you want it to assess? (more later in the term)
EX: A researcher want to measure the number of close friendships a person has, and asks:
How many friend requests do you have on FaceBook?
Is this a valid measure of close friendship?
How to validate/test question validity?
Pre-testing:
– Have others answer the questions
– Ask for feedback
– Revise questions that are unclear or misunderstood
- OR use an existing & validated questionnaire!
Response Sets (Additional Considerations for Surveys)
A tendency to respond to all questions from a particular perspective or in a particular way rather than to provide answers to the questions themselves.
Social Desirability (Additional Considerations for Surveys)
(aka “faking good”)
Tendency for a participant to respond in the most socially acceptable way, or as “most people” would. - more likely with sensitive topics
Additional Considerations for Surveys
- Response sets
- Extraversion
- Social desireability
- Open-ended vs. closed-ended
Pros of open ended Q’s:
- Can get rich, creative, unexpected, and/or complex answers
- Identify common themes
Cons of open ended Q’s:
- Reponses may be ambiguous
- P’s may interpret questions in different ways
- Time consuming to code
READINGS
Survey research uses questionnaires and interviews to ask people to provide information about themselves
○ Attitudes
○ Beliefs
○ Demographics
○ Past behaviours
○ Intended future actions
4 reasons to conduct surveys:
- Method to ask people to tell us about themselves (self-report)
- Society demands data about issues, rather than just intuition and anecdotes
- Survey data, if collected in a responsible fashion, can more useful information than individual anecdotes (□ For example, collecting student opinions to create effective curriculums)
- When using basic research, you can easily study many important variables using questionnaires or interviews