Research and design quiz #7 Flashcards
There are a lot of considerations when choosing a design for your study. Our textbook lists 11 of them:
- Pur___ of the study
- Wh ____ __arch has done
- Theo____ _____
- Conc_____ ____ _____ __mework
- Hypotheses
- Survey instruments
- S______
- Data collection
- An___ ____oach
- Time frame
- Ethical/moral considerations
Purpose of the study
* What prior research has done
* Theoretical framework
* Concepts and/or conceptual framework
* Hypotheses
* Survey instruments
* Sampling
* Data collection
* Analytical approach
* Time frame
* Ethical/moral considerations
Two broad types of research designs fall under _____ and
_______
surveys and
experiments
___ _____ – the point of these is to provide a quantitative or
numeric description of trends, attitudes, or opinions of a population
by studying a sample of that population
Which research design (of the 2) is this?
Survey designs
_____ _____ – the point of these is to test the impact of a
treatment or intervention on an outcome, controlling for all other
factors that may influence that outcome. The findings we gain from
experimental research are then generalized back to the population
Which research design (of the 2) is this?
Experimental designs
Eight (8) design types
- His____
*Descr____ive
*Dev____/Time S__ries
*Ca__ St___
*Corre____al
*Causal Comp____ve
*Tru_ _______ntal
*Quasi-Experimental
Historical
*Descriptive
*Developmental/Time Series
*Case Study
*Correlational
*Causal Comparative
*True Experimental
*Quasi-Experimental
These allow researchers to systematically and objectively reconstruct the past
* Information/records/secondary data are collected, evaluated, verified,
and synthesized to establish facts
* Intervening factors should also be included, mainly because all relevant
information relating to the purpose of the research should be
considered. These obtained facts are used to support the researcher’s
hypotheses
*Some drawbacks:
* Limited by what records/info is available
* Can’t expand beyond what is documented
* “garbage in garbage out” motto
of the eight (8) design types, which one is this?
Historical Design
These focus on the description of facts and characteristics of a given population,
issue, policy, or any given area of interest in a systematic and accurate manner
* Can also use secondary data/records – in fact, much historical research is
descriptive
* Descriptive studies have the potential to identify insights not recognized in prior
research, as well as lead to lead to inferential research
* Inferential research generalizes findings from a sample back to the population
from which it was drawn
* Some limitations:
* Limits on available variables
* Lack of information
* Time sensitive/limited time frame
of the eight (8) design types, which one is this?
Descriptive Design
Allows for an intensive study of a particular issue, policy, or group within its social context at a given point in time (even though that period of time may be expansive)
* Case studies tend to focus on a particular/specific phenomena EXAMPLE:
Supreme Court Jurisprudence and School Shooting Threats article
* They can be longitudinal if one is observing repeated cases over some period of
time
* There are three main elements in this design
* Qualitative/quantitative descriptions of variables over time
* Provides context where researchers can observe change in variables
* Can be used for instrument development and instrument reliability testing
of the eight (8) design types, which one is this?
Case Study Design
Examines relationships from a cause-effect perspective
* Observe existing outcomes or consequences and then search back
through the data to identify plausible causal factors
* Essentially, the idea is that some event you are interested in occurs.
After the fact, you go back and look for both independent and
dependent variables that appropriately explain the event you
observed.
* In a sense, causal-comparative is sort of a retrospective approach to
research design
of the eight (8) design types, which one is this?
Causal-Comparative Design
- Fairly simple design
- Researcher assesses the relationship between one variable and
another to determine the strength and directionality of that
association - In this design, the focus is on the variation occurring in one variable
and how that corresponds to the potential variation in another
variable - Depending on what level of measurement your variable is (nominal,
ordinal, interval, ratio), you will employ different correlational
statistics to make associational determinations. EXAMPLE: PPH data
article.
of the eight (8) design types, which one is this?
Correlational Design
- These designs allow researchers to investigate patterns and events, growth, or change over a
specific amount of time. There are several types that generally fall under this umbrella
of the eight (8) design types, which one is this?
Developmental/Time Series Design
- When you hear “Randomized Controlled Trial,” this is it
- There are many different types of true experimental designs a researcher could use…
- Allows for the investigation of potential cause-effect relationships
- One or more experimental groups are exposed to one or more treatments while none,
one, or more control groups are also accounted for - The outcomes of all groups in the study are then compared to determine whether the intervention or treatment had a substantive and/or significant effect on the treated group as compared to the controls
of the eight (8) design types, which one is this?
True Experimental Design (the “gold
standard”)
Allows for the approximation of conditions similar to the true
experiment
* Quasi-experimental designs can use samples which are
randomly drawn from some population, but they typically do
not employ random assignment of those participants to
control and experimental groups
* The lack of random assignment in quasi-experiments creates
validity issues which makes it harder to estimate the
treatment effect
of the eight (8) design types, which one is this?
Quasi-Experimental Design
The four major components of a true experiment are
Random assignment
* IVs & DVs
* Experimental and control groups
* Pretests and posttests
– analysis and description of a single entity during a single time
frame. Could also collapse time series data into an aggregate, which would technically be cross-sectional
Which of the five (5) types of developmental/time series designs is this one?
Cross-sectional studies
