quantitative research Flashcards
quantitative research relates to?
it relates to stats and number
what are the different types of variables?
independent
dependent
what are the different levels of measurements?
nominal (weakest)
ordinal
interval
ratio (strongest)
The variable we manipulate is the:
Independent variable (difficulty of an exam)
The variable we hypothesise to change is the:
Dependent variable (heart rate)
nominal variables:
The variable can have different ‘values’
These assign a NAME
But they cannot be ordered
ordinal variables:
If you can ORDER the values, the data scale is ORDinal
The difference between two values is not necessarily constant
interval variables:
An interval is a ‘set distance’
An interval scale is an ordinal scale in which the distance or difference between consecutive values is constant
ratio variables:
An interval scale in which there is a set ‘zero’ and no negative values are possible
The ‘ratio’ between 2 values is meaningful
what is a population?
A group of persons / places / things that have a common characteristic
what is a sample?
A portion of a population
what does your sample have to be?
Your sample has to be as representative to the population as possible
Usually done by ‘random sampling’
In reality may just take whoever volunteers
what can samples be?
Paired
Independent
what are paired and independent samples
two groups of subjects (= independent)
one group of subjects measured twice (= paired)
what is variance?
The central tendency of a dataset does not provide information on how widely scattered the scores are
