research methods Flashcards
what is a single blind study?
- participants may not be told details about the research (ie the aim, which condition they are in, if there is another condition)
- done in an attempt to control demand characteristics
what is a double blind study?
- both participants & researchers are unaware of the aims
- often conducted by third party
- done to avoid investigator effects
what is a case study?
an in-depth investigation, description and analysis of a single individual/group/institution
what is content analysis?
research:
- systematic investigation of materials and sources
- done to establish facts and reach new conclusions
method:
- particular procedure for accomplishing or approaching something
what is coding?
- stage of content analysis
- communication is analysed by identifying each instance of the chosen categories
what is thematic analysis?
- inductive and qualitative approach to analysis
- involves identifying implicit or explicit ideas within data
- themes will often emerge after coding
what does studying a ‘case’ involve?
- may involve the production of qualitative data
- may construct a case history of the individual
- may be subjected to experimental or psychological testing (may produce quantitative data)
- tend to take place over a long period of time (longitudinal)
evaluation of using case studies
+ offers rich detailed insights
+ contributes to understanding of ‘normal behaviour’
+ may generate hypotheses for future studies
- no generalisability
- may be based on researcher’s interpretation
- retroactive accounts
evaluation of content analysis
+ circumnavigates many ethical issues
+ high external validity
- studied indirectly
- analysed outside of context within it occurred
- lack of objectivity
what is a questionnaire?
- most common form of self report technique
- involves a pre-set list of written questions
- used to assess thoughts and/or feelings
- may be used as part of an experiment
- may be used to assess the DV
what is an open question?
- does not have a fixed range of answers
- respondents are free to answer in any way they wish
- contains a wide range of different responses
- tends to produce qualitative data
- may be difficult to analyse
what is a closed question?
- offers a fixed number of responses
- gathers qualitative data (counts number of qualitative responses)
- easy to analyse
- may lack depth and detail
what is an interview?
- may be conducted over the phone/on the internet
- may involve face to face interaction
what is a structured interview?
- made up of a pre-determined set of questions that are in a fixed order
what is an unstructured interview?
- works like a conversation
- no set questions
- general aim that a certain topic will be discussed
- interaction tends to be free- flowing
what is a semi-structured interview?
- most likely to encounter in every day life
- list of questions worked out in advance
- interviewers are also free to ask follow up questions
how do you design an interview?
- involve an interview schedule
- should be standardised to reduce the contaminating effect
- usually involve an interview and a single participant
- one-to-one in a quiet room, starting with neutral questions
what is acquiescent bias?
phenomenon where individuals are likely to agree with with something regardless of how they actually feel
what is social desirability bias?
portraying yourself in a specific way to appeal to society/the researcher
what is response bias?
participants reply in a similar way every time (ie always ticking yes)
questionnaires evaluation
+ cost-effective
+ gather large amounts of data quickly
+ can be distributed to large amounts of people
+ can be completed without researcher’s presence
+ can be easily analysed
- responses may not be truthful
- often produces: social desirability, acquiescent and response biases
unstructured interview evaluation
+ flexible
+ more likely to gain insight
- risk of observer bias
- difficult to analyse
structured interview evaluation
+ replicable
- unable to deviate from topic
- social desirability bias
- limited amount of rich data
what is a pilot study?
- a small scale trial run of a study that is done before the real study
- identifies any potential issues
- improvements can be done
random sample evaluation
+ potentially unbiased
- may be confounding variables
- time consuming
systematic sample evaluation
+ objective method
- time-consuming
- selected participants may refuse
stratified sample evaluation
+ representative
- cannot account for subgroups
opportunity sample evaluation
+ convenient
- unrepresentative
volunteer sample evaluation
+ easy
+ participants engage and want to do the study
- volunteer bias
what is a correlation?
- mathematical technique
- investigates an association between two variables (called co-variables)
what is a positive correlation?
as one co-variable increases/decreases, the other co-variable increases/decreases. (ie the number of people in a room and the noise level)
what is a negative correlation?
as one co-variable increases the other decreases (ie the number of people in a room and the amount of space)
what is a zero correlation?
when the co-variables have no relationship (ie the amount of people in Newcastle and the amount of daily rainfall in Peru are likely to have no relationship)
what are measures of central tendency?
the general term for any measure of the average value in a set of data (ie mean, median and mode)
what is a measure of dispersion?
indicates the scattering of data and explains the disparity of data from to another (ie range and standard deviation)
what is standard deviation?
- single value that tells us how far scores deviate from the mean
- the larger the standard deviation, the larger the spread within a set of data
- if there is a large SD within a particular condition it suggests that not all participants were impacted by the IV in the same way
- low standard deviation reflects the fact that the data is tightly clustered around the mean, which may imply all participants responded in the same way
mean evaluation
+ representative
- distorted by extreme values (ie average class age including teacher)
median evaluation
+ extreme scores do not effect the median
- less sensitive so less representative
mode evaluation
+ easy to calculate
+ sometimes only usable average (when not dealing with numerical data)
- not very representative
range evaluation
+ easy to calculate
- unrepresentative
- distorted by extreme values
standard deviation evaluation
+ more precise
- distorted by extreme values
what is qualitative data?
- expressed in words and non-numerical values
- may be converted to numbers for the purposes of analysis
what is quantitative data?
data that can be counted - usually given as a number
what is primary data?
- has been obtained first-hand by a researcher for the purposes of a research project
- often collected directly from participants as part of an experiment, self-report or observation
what is secondary data?
- already been collected by someone
- pre-dates the current research project
- might include the work of other psychologists or government statistics
what is meta-analysis?
- combining the findings from a number of studies on a particular topic
- aim is to produce an overall statistical conclusion (the effect size) based on a range of studies
- should not be confused with a review where a number of studies are compared and discussed
a general statement about what the researcher intends to do
what is an aim?
a testable statement that is made before the study takes place which states the relationship between variables
what is a hypothesis?
predicts that there will be a difference and states in what direction (ie higher, lower)
what is a directional hypothesis?
predicts that there will be a difference but does not specify in which direction
what is a non-directional hypothesis?
the variable the researcher controls, changes, or manipulates
what is the independent variable (IV)?
the outcome, which is measured by the researcher and is caused by the change in the IV
what is the dependent variable (DV)?
if previous research suggests the direction of findings
when should you use a directional hypothesis?
if previous research suggests the findings are ambiguous or there are little to no findings
when should you use a non-directional hypothesis?
