Quantitative Research Methods Flashcards
Outline Middlemist et al
Aim: To investigate how the presence of others effected the time it took men to urinate in a public toilet.
- 1) Toilet with 3 stalls.
2) 1 participant stood either next to the participant, one urinal away, or was not present.
3) Another researcher hid the next urinal to measure the time it took the participant to begin urinating.
- Results: Average onset of urination was much higher with the researcher in 1 urinal away, and higher when he was right next to p.
Festinger et al (participant observation)
- AIM; How the people in. a cult would cope with the situation when they found out that the world wouldnt end a specific time.
- 1) R read a newspaper article abt a cult that thought the world was gonna end.
- 2) Joined the cult and pretended they converted.
3)Theory of cognitive dissonance said they would would either chnage their beliefs or change their behavior.
-4) When the data arrived, some changed their beliefs and some left.
Evaluate participant observation:
- provides in-depth knowledge of a topic
- avoids researcher bias because researchers seek to understand instead of imposing their own reality.
- Provides holistic interpretation, many things taken into account.
- Difficult to record data.
- time-consuming and demanding.
Naturalistic observations
- High ecological validity
- can be used to collect data where it be unethical to do so.
- PPl may react to observation.
- Data from a single researcher can be an issue.
- Searching ppl without their knowledge.
Outline the hockey study
- AIM: Studying aggressive behavior.
- 1) 79 hockkey players, asked for consent beg
Unstructured Interviews
An interview schedule is used on the participants can gain more insights into answers that lead to an interesting understanding of the characteristics of the participants
Evaluating unstructured interviews
Strengths:
- not restricted to a list
- enables researchers to make interventions.
- using thematic analysis
Limitations:
- questions are not set, the way that they are asked is subject to the skill and biases of the researcher.
- one-to-one lacks eco validity
- time-consuming analysis
Evaluate focus groups
good
- convenient to gather data for more ppl
- natural setting, higher ecological. validity
- members prompt answers from other members
bas
- not appropoiate iwth all due to sensituve matters
- conformity
- harder to facilitate and anayze data
Before interview considerations
- identify the sampling method
- train interviewers to avoid interviewer effects.
- ensure non-verbal cues don’t intimidate researchers.
during considerations
- use descriptive questions to elicit deep responses.
- data recording, method
- determine transcription method
Inductive content analysis
1) rereading transcripts for a detailed account
2) emergent themes that characterize each section.
3) categorize high-order themes and create a hierarchy.
4) based on higher-order themes, data is interpreted.
Grigoriou study
- examined close friendships between gay men and straight women.
1)8 pairs of friends from Britain.
2) Asked to reflect abt the perception of others in their social network on their friendship, then abt their previous partners perception, then compare between this and normal friendships.
3) Carried out thematic analysis: - results:
- For personality and not sexuality.
- Trust
- Social support
- perception of others
Case study
an in-depth investigation of a human experience
Intrinsic Case study
represent only themselves, focused on understanding a specific case.
instrumental case study
represent more general phenomena
