Quantitative Karina General

Question 1

what are the four main types of quantitative data gathering?

Answer 1

Survey
Observation
Behaviour / implicit
Biological / physiological / neurological

Question 2

What are the two main sources of bias?

Answer 2

participant

researcher

Question 3

what kinds of participant bias?

Answer 3

• social desirability

- demand characteristics

Question 4

what kinds of researcher bias?

Answer 4

• experimenter expectations
• selective reporting of data
• rare occasions – falsifying data

Question 5

what types of validity are there?

Answer 5

internal

external

ecological

Question 6

what is Internal Validity of Design?

Answer 6

extent of cause-effect claims,

and ability to rule out alternative explanations

Question 7

what is external Validity of Design?

Answer 7

External Validity of Design – extent to which findings can be generalised

Question 8

what is a Non-experimental Research Designs

?

Answer 8

• Examine relationships between naturally occurring characteristics of individuals or events

Question 9

however in Non-experimental Research Designs… you cannot….

Answer 9

No cause-effect claims

Question 10

what are the advantages ?

Answer 10

• Studying phenomena that cannot be experimentally manipulated
• Examining ‘real behaviour’ in ‘natural setting’ (although can be conducted in lab)
• Avoids demand characteristics, participant roles, experimenter bias

Question 11

what are the disadvantages?

Answer 11

• Cannot form confident causal inferences • Direction of causality:
X → Y or Y → X?

¥ Third variable problem: Z → X and Y

¥ Person, environmental, and operational
confounds (think of some of the confounds in a study examining the relationship between exposure to violent media and aggressive behaviour)

Question 12

3 main types of non-experimental research?

Answer 12

• Correlational research (observation/survey research)
• Archival research
• Case studies

Question 13

what are the key points to observational research?

Answer 13

• Unobtrusive observations best

• If possible, make audio and visual recording
• Quantifying data:

Ð Develop a coding scheme; clearly and simply define behaviours; use clear operational definitions

• Have at least 2 independent observers – measure inter-rater reliability

Question 14

what are the Measures used to quantify behaviour in obs research?

Answer 14

• frequency – number of times in a period
• duration – how long behaviour lasts
• interval – whether behaviour occurs in specific period

Question 15

How/when to sample behaviour?

Answer 15

¥

• time sampling – observation/recording/observation
• individual sampling – individual selected
• event sampling – observe one behaviour, record all instances

Question 16

what is cross sectional design?

Answer 16

• Create ‘cohort’ groups based on different ages of participants ‘quasi-IV’

Question 17

advantage of cross sec design?

Answer 17

¥ Quick, cheap, collect developmental data in short period

Question 18

disadvantage of cross sec design?

Answer 18

¥ Generation effects may be a problem (e.g., measure substantial differences in IQ with age - 20 to 70 - because of education)

Question 19

what is longitudinal design?

Answer 19

Ð Same set of participants measured several times (e.g. over months, years)

Question 20

what are the 3 advantages of long design?

Answer 20

Ð Avoids possible generation effects

Ð Development trajectory clear
Ð Stronger claim for causality

Question 21

4 main issues with long design?

Answer 21

1) participant attrition/mortality
2) time + money

3) multiple observation effects
- threat to internal validity e.g. increase in Iq might be because of education and training toward test used – also, many factors are confounded with age

4) cross generational effects (conclusion drawn from one study generation may not generalize (e.g 1910–>1950 vs 1990–>2017)
- Possible cross-generational problem

• Results from one generation may not generalise to another

Question 22

what is Cohort-Sequential Design

?

Answer 22

¥ Combines cross-sectional and longitudinal component in same design

Question 23

benefit of Cohort-Sequential Design?

Answer 23

¥ Allows some disentangling of age, cohort, time

Question 24

you can also test for …

Answer 24

¥ Possible to test for generation effects, though does not eliminate them (lets you detect and consider them)

Question 25

age is a xxxxxx variable so no xxxxxx can be attributed to age

Answer 25

age is a quasi- experimental variable so no cause can be attributed to age

Question 26

what is a single - case design?

Answer 26

Ð Consists, in the limit, of one participant (N=1 design) but typically 3-6 participants used to establish generalisability/external validity
Ð Includes stringent control
Ð Systematic effect of treatments/conditions over multiple observations establishes cause and effect

Question 27

what are the details of the case-study approach? 4 points

Answer 27

• Case-study approach

Ð Observational technique of observing single participant

Ð Often used in clinical settings

Ð Descriptive or observational approach
Ð No manipulation or control of variables; simple recording of observations

Question 28

when to use single case design?

Answer 28

Ð Single-case designs powerful where behaviour of single cases/participants can be observed under different treatments/conditions, with multiple observations per treatment/condition, allowing momentary fluctuations to average out effects of treatments are reversible and/or carryover

Question 29

what is baseline design?

Answer 29

• Individual participants observed under each of several ‘treatment’ phases or conditions
• Multiple responses recorded in each phase before next phase (i.e., time series)
• Baseline phase of extensive observations
• Repetition, or intra-participant replication, of treatment effects establishes reliability of findings

Question 30

in baseline design you need to establish

Answer 30

• Adopt a stability criterion
- guarantees participant will stay in a phase until observations no longer show systematic changes
- criterion should not be too strict or loose
- removes ‘transitional’ behaviours from analysis
• Deal with uncontrolled variability
- sources need to be identified and controlled

Question 31

and determine a level of internal

Answer 31

Determine generality of findings - inter-participant replication
• Generality across situations requires study replication
- direct replication – exact replication
- systematic replication – incorporate variations on original

Question 32

what are the four issues with baselines?

Answer 32

• Drifting baselines

• baseline that does not stabilise but continues to show systematic variations (drift)
• take drift into account, and effects of treatment can maybe still be determined

• Unrecoverable baselines
- behaviour cannot be returned to original baseline after treatment (carryover effects; treatment effect may still be manifest)

• Unequal baselines between participants

• different participants level off at very different baseline values (e.g., rats spontaneously press lever different number of times depending on individual levels of motivation)
• steps may be taken to equalise baselines (e.g., increase deprivation of all individuals so lever pressing high in all, and all have opportunity for learning)

• Inappropriate baseline levels

• baseline levels that are too high or low may mask effects of treatment (similar to range effects)
• levels have to be adjusted to appropriate levels

Question 33

most common types of baseline designs?

Answer 33

Ð Single-Factor Design

Ð Most common–ABA(baseline ,treatment, baseline)

Ð Demonstration of treatment effect requires return to baseline

Ð To establish intra-participant replication (and avoid ending on baseline in clinical contexts) can extend to ABAB

Ð ABAB can be extended to accommodate multiple levels of IV – e.g. ABACBC
- need to counterbalance to deal with carryover effects

Question 34

Single-case Designs - Advantages ?

Answer 34

¥ Focus on tightly controlling error variance
¥ Focus on individual behaviour:
- makes identifying and controlling sources of error variance easy
- may reveal critical mechanistic details lost with group approach (e.g., attention & transfer of learning about compound stimuli)
¥ Causal relationships can be established with very few participants

Question 35

Single-case Designs - Disadvantages ?

Answer 35

¥ Making multiple observations is time- consuming, can be tedious
¥ Not appropriate for all research questions (e.g., developmental and social psychology!)
¥ Results may be of limited generality
¥ All variables that can cause error variance cannot be identified and controlled

Question 36

what is Construct validity?

Answer 36

Construct validity is “the degree to which a test measures what it claims, or purports, to be measuring

Question 37

what is Test validity?

Answer 37

Test validity is the extent to which a test (such as a chemical, physical, or scholastic test) accurately measures what it is supposed to measure.

Question 38

what is content validity ?

Answer 38

In psychometrics, content validity (also known as logical validity) refers to the extent to which a measure represents all facets of a given construct.

Question 39

what are Convergent and discriminant validity ?

Answer 39

Convergent and discriminant validity are both considered subcategories or subtypes of construct validity. The important thing to recognize is that they work together – if you can demonstrate that you have evidence for both convergent and discriminant validity, then you’ve by definition demonstrated that you have evidence for construct validity. But, neither one alone is sufficient for establishing construct validity.

measures of constructs that theoretically should be related to each other are, in fact, observed to be related to each other (that is, you should be able to show a correspondence or convergence between similar constructs)

and

measures of constructs that theoretically should not be related to each other are, in fact, observed to not be related to each other (that is, you should be able to discriminate between dissimilar constructs)