Quantitative Methods

Question 1

What are the 3 features of a good research question?

Answer 1

Unknown, impactful and practical

Question 2

Define QUANTITATIVE

Answer 2

Numerical and graphical realisation of the distribution of variables and their relation to each other

Question 3

What are the benefits of QUANTITATIVE research?

Answer 3

• Objectivity

- Generalisability

Question 4

How does quantitative research ensure OBJECTIVITY?

Answer 4

Data collection via universal, non-subjective methods of measurement, commonly yielding numerical data

Question 5

How does quantitative research ensure GENERALISABILITY?

Answer 5

• Uses large participant groups
• Sampling from a well-defined population
• Uses inferential statistics to give confidence estimation

Question 6

Define VARIABLE

Answer 6

A measurement with a well defined set of potential values

Question 7

What are the features of a CATEGORICAL VARIABLE?

Answer 7

• Can take a finite set of discrete values

- No intrinsic ordering

Question 8

How does an ORDINAL variable differ from a CATEGORICAL variable?

Answer 8

ORDINAL variables have an intrinsic order

Question 9

What are the features of a CONTINUOUS variable? What are the 2 sub-types of CONTINUOUS variable?

Answer 9

• Can take any value within a continuous range
• INTERNAL: subtraction and addition are meaningful operations
• RATIO: subtraction, addition and multiplication are meaningful operations

Question 10

What are the 6 psychological variables?

Answer 10

Experimental Manipulation, Physical Behaviours, Neural Responses, Physiology, Latent Traits, Demography

Question 11

What is EXPERIMENTAL MANIPULATION? Describe the 2 ways in which these are carried out

Answer 11

• Changing something about a stimulus to measure its effect on a separate variable
• REPEATED MEASURE approach: applying a manipulation to the same participant and recording the difference
• BETWEEN GROUPS approach; splitting the participant group and performing separate manipulations/keeping one a CONTROL variable, and recording the difference between them

Question 12

How do PHYSICAL BEHAVIOUR and PHYSIOLOGY differ?

Answer 12

PHYSICAL BEHAVIOUR relates to outward bodily changes whilst PHYSIOLOGY concerns inward bodily change

Question 13

What are the 3 main types of neural imaging scan?

Answer 13

• EEG: Electroencephalography
• MEG: Magnetoencephalography
• fMRI: Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Question 14

How does EEG work? What are the advantages and disadvantages?

Answer 14

• Records the neural patters of the outer brain
• High temporal sensitivity
• Low sensitivity to localisation of brain activity

Question 15

How does MEG work? What are the advantages and disadvantages?

Answer 15

• Records the the magnetic fields of neurons
• High temporal sensitivity
• Medium sensitivity to localisation of brain activity

Question 16

How does fMRI work? What are the advantages and disadvantages?

Answer 16

• Measures the changes in blood flow in the brain; more blood flow = higher activity (needs oxygen)
• Low temporal sensitivity
• High sensitivity to localisation of brain activity

Question 17

What are LATENT TRAITS?

Answer 17

Personal characteristics that control the behaviour of an individual

Question 18

What are the ‘BIG FIVE’ latent traits?

Answer 18

Extraversion, Agreeableness, Openness to New Experiences, Conscientiousness and Neuroticism

Question 19

What DEMOGRAPHIC variables? Give some examples

Answer 19

• Generalised characteristics of population members

- Age, Sex, Country of Birth etc

Question 20

What 2 features need to be kept in mind during QUANTITATIVE data collection? How may experimental design effect this?

Answer 20

• VALIDITY: are you actual measuring what you intend to measure?
• RELIABILITY: will the same measures under similar conditions yield the similar results?

Question 21

How does an increased sample size effect the quality of data collection?

Answer 21

• Increased Reliability
• More representative of the population and therefore more accurate/generalisable
• More likely to have outliers (by chance)

Question 22

Define INDEPENDANT VARIABLE

Answer 22

The measure manipulated by the experimenter (what is changed)

Question 23

Define DEPENDANT VARIABLE

Answer 23

An unchanged measure

Question 24

How are CORRELATION and CAUSALITY related?

Answer 24

CORREALTION is a sign of CAUSALITY; however, two variables may CORRELATE but remain independent of each other:

• Coincidental occurrence by chance
• Both caused by a third external variable

Question 25

What are DESCRIPTIVE STATISICS? What are the 2 types? Give examples of each

Answer 25

• Summarisation of a dataset
• MESAURES OF CENTRALITY: mean, median, mode
• MEASURES OF SPREAD: range, standard deviation

Question 26

What are INFERENTIAL STATISICS? How might these be measured?

Answer 26

• Predict/infer values using data retrieved from a sample using models
• Probability distribution, linear regression

Question 27

What does the STANDARD DEVIATION show?

Answer 27

The average distance between any given data point and the mean data value of the data set