Other Research Methods Flashcards
three more types of research method…
meta analysis
case study
content analysis
what is a meta analysis?
researchers look at findings from numerous different studies and produce a statistic to represent the overall effect
meta analysis is the method used to analyse the data found in a systematic review of research
it produces an effect size which is a measure of the strength of the relationship between two variables in order to assess overall trends
what does a meta analysis involve?
systematic review
meta analysis
what is a systematic review?
a review is a consideration of numerous studies that have investigated the same topic in order to reach a general conclusion about a particular hypothesis
a systematic review/assessment of other studies involves identifying an aim and searching for research studies that have addressed similar aims/hypotheses, possibly by looking through various databases which hold details of research published in academic journals
a decision must be made about what kind of studies will be included or excluded in this search (e.g. a review of attachment research may only include studies that have used the strange situation or only used infants aged 1 and below)
meta analysis is the method used to analyse the data found, this technique produces an effect size which is a measure of the strength of the relationship between two variables in order to assess overall trends
example of meta analysis
Kohnken et al (1999)
conducted a meta analysis of 53 studies related to the Cognitive Interview
found that CIs were more effective than standard interviewing techniques
the effect size was 34% which means that if all the studies involved in the meta analysis, the CI improved recall by 34%
what is a case study?
a research investigation that involves the detailed study of a single individual, institution or event
generally longitudinal and follow the individual over an extended period of time
how is a case study conducted?
uses information from a range of sources, such as from the person being studied as well as from their family and friends
various research techniques may be used…
• the person may be interviewed or observed while engaging in daily life
- they may participate in IQ or personality tests or another type of questionnaire to produce psychological data about themselves
- experiments may be conducted to test what the person can or cannot do
the findings are organised to represent the individuals thoughts, emotions, experiences and abilities
example of a case study
HM, a man who lost the ability to remember any new events due to damage to his hippocampus
over a period of 50 year his abilities were tested and he was interviews and observed in everyday life
what is a content analysis?
the systematic analysis of the content of something in which behaviour is observed indirectly in written or verbal material such as interviews, books or tv programmes
for example, a researcher might study the gender content of magazine advertisements and attempt to describe this content in a systematic way so that conclusions can be drawn
a form of indirect observation — researchers do not observe people directly but observe them through the artefacts they produce which may be TV programmes, books, songs, etc
the researcher must make design decisions about…
• the sampling method — what material to sample and how frequently (e.g. which TV channels to include, how many programmes to analyse, how long to analyse them for)
• behavioural categories to be used — how to categories what you’re analysing (e.g. in a content analysis of songs the behavioural categories might be romantic, humorous, seasonal songs, etc)
evaluation of meta analysis
reviewing findings from a group of studies rather than from just one study can increase the validity of the conclusions drawn as they are based on a wider sample of participants
studies under review often produce rather contradictory results, for instance some studies find no effect, some find small effects and others find very large effects. this may make it difficult to draw an overall conclusion
the research designs in the different studies sampled may vary considerably, meaning that the studies are not truly comparable, putting them all together to calculate the effect size may not be appropriate and therefore the conclusions are not always valid
time consuming
evaluation of case studies
case studies offer rich, in-depth and highly detailed data about a particular individual institution or event, this level of detail may not be gained using other techniques
this holistic approach also means that information that may have been overlooked using other methods is likely to be identified as a case study gains a whole insight into the person and allows the complex interaction of many factors to be studied
especially useful as a means of investigating instances of human behaviour and experience that are rare or where it would be unethical to generate such conditions experimentally — for example, investigating cases of people with brain damage or investigating how people responded to the 2011 London riots
it tends to be very difficult to generalise from individual case studies as each one has unique characteristics and the people or events being studied are not representative of the general population or everyday life
case studies also often involve the recollection of past events as part of the case history and such evidence may be unreliable
case studies are only identified after a key event has occurred, such as damage to the brain, therefore we cannot be sure that the apparent changes observed were not present originally
case studies tend to be longitudinal which means we are able to observe long-term affects and make comparisons between the same individual at different ages
evaluation of content analysis
high ecological validity because it is based on observations of what people actually do, it involves real communications which are current and relevant such as recent newspapers
easy to replicate if sources can be retained or accessed by others such as copies of magazines or videos of people giving speeches
observer bias reduces the objectivity and validity of findings because different observers may interpret the meaning of the behaviour categories differently and find completely different results
