Quantitative Research Flashcards
Construct validity
Good measurements of variables
Explain and Compare Experimental Studies
Variables are manipulated and effects on other variables are measured
ADVANTAGES
- Best method to establish cause and effect
DISADVANTAGES
- Careful design is essential otherwise confounding can threaten validity of results
Identify measurements scales?
- Nominal scale: existing in name only scales
- Ordinal scales: Ratio or rank ordering
- Interval scales: Numerical values, no true zero
- Ratio scales: Has a true zero
Name the goals of quantitative research?
- Describing Behaviours
- Predicting Behaviours
- Identify the causes of behaviour
- Explaining behaviour
Identify what is in a consent form?
- Overview
- Description procedures
- Risks and inconveniences
- Benefits
- Costs and economic considerations
- Confidentiality
- Alternative treatments
- Voluntary participation
- Questions and further information
- Signature lines
Define confounding variables
Variables that interfere with each oher and their possible effects on some other variables of interest
Identify the steps of the scientific method?
Quantitative
- Defining the research question
- Forming a hypothesis
- Define variables
- Testing hypothesis
- Drawing conclusions + Analyze data
- Reporting your results
- More research on theory building
- New hypothesis derived from theory
Explain and Compare Naturalistic Observations
Behaviour observed in the setting where it naturally occurs
ADVANTAGES
- Can provide realistic detailed info about nature, frequency, and context of naturally occuring behaviours
- Researchers can get realistic pictures of certain behviour occuring in natural settings
DISADVANTAGES
- Can’t establish cause and effect
- Observer effect: Observes presence may effect the behaviour of participants
- Observer bias: expects to see something
Explain the experimental procedure for informed consent?
- Give consent form
- Outline what is required of them
- Seat at table with pencil
- Identify and exclude confounding variables
Name the Two functions of Theories
Quantitative
- It organises and explains a variety of specific facts or descriptions of behaviour
- It generates new knowledge by focusing our thinking
Define scientific theories?
- Are grounded in actual data from prior research
- Generate hypothesis which can be tested
- = Must be falsifiable
Describe and Identify controls for Experimenter Expectancy Effects?
A researchers cognitive bias causes them to subconsciously influence the participants of an experiment
CONTROL
- Train experimenters well so that they behave consistently with all participants
- Run experimental and control conditions simultaneously, if the experimenters instructions are the same for both
- In terms of automated instructions provided they actually have an administered app or software. So the instructor administers the app and all the instructions are automated. There is very little bias possibility.
Explain and Compare Correlational Studies
Examine the strength of association between variables.
Statistical technique to look for patterns in data
ADVANTAGES
- Allows prediction
- May help establish how results from experiments generalise to more natural settings
- Can examine issues that cannot be studied practically or ethically in experiments
DISADVANTAGES
- Cannot give causation
Explain and Compare Surveys
Questions of tests administered to a sample drawn from a larger population
ADVANTAGES
- A properly drawn representative sample gives accurate info about the broader population
- Can elicit lots of data and private info
DISADVANTAGES
- Unrepresentative samples yield misleading results
- May give innacurate answers
- Questions may be understoof differentely
Describe and Identify controls for Placebo Effects?
PLACEBO: is the actual treatment or the actual drug. Refers to the inactive substance or the inactive therapeutic intervention.
PLACEBO EFFECT: is when people that receive the treatment show a change in behaviour because of their expectations not because of the treatment itself. Refers to the effect of taking the medicine or a treatment that can’t be attributed to the treatment.