Research Methods 2 Flashcards
What is a lab experiment?
An experiment that takes place in a controlled environment in which the researcher can manipulate the IV and record the effect on the DV while maintaining control on extraneous variables
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What are the advantages of lab experiments?
- High internal validity: can establish cause and effect between changes in the IV and oserved differences in the DV
- Very reliable and can be replicated: due to standardised procedures
What are the disadvantages of lab experiments?
- Lacks ecological validity: results can’t be appplied to the real world
- Demand characteristics: participants know they’re taking part in a study
What is a field experiment?
An expperiment that takes places in a natural setting in which the researcher manipulates the IV and records the effect on the DV
What are the advantages of a field experiment?
- High ecological validity: Participants behae more naturally in a normal environment, meaning behaviour can be applied to other naturalistic settings
- Demand characteristics reduced: Participants are less aware they’re taking part in a study
What is a disadvantage of a field experiment?
- Lack of control of extraneous variabbles: may be influencing the measurement of the DV and not the actual manipulation of the IV / any effect obsered may be due to another factor otrher than the change of the IV (reduces validity)
What is a natural experiment?
An experiment where the change in the IV is not brought about by the researcher and would happen even if the researcher was not present. The researcher then records the effect on the DV
What are the advantages of a natural experiment?
- Allows research in areas that may not happen in controlled environments
- High external validity: real behaviour free from demand characteristics
What are the disadvantages of a natural experiment?
- Unreliable: often rare events that can’t be replicated
- Research cannot control extraneous variables: can’t claim to have found a cause and effect relationship
What is a quasi experiment?
A study that is almost like an experiment in which the IV has not yet been determined and the variables just simply exist
What are the advantages of a quasi experiment?
- Only way to study factors that are already pre-existing characteristics of participants
- High internal validity: Often carried out in lab conditions
What are the disadvantages of a quasi experiment?
- Lacks external validity: environment is artificial, results cannot be generalised to real life situations
- Demand characteristics: Particiants know they’re apart of a study and more likely to alter behaviour
What is an observation?
Non experimental technique in which records natural behaviour without the manipulation of the IV
What is a naturalistic observation?
Watching and recording behaviour in an environment or setting which would normally occur
What are the advantages of a naturalistic observation?
- High realism: participants’ Behaviour is more natural
- Ecological validity: Behaviour can be generalised to other real world situations
What is a disadvantage of a naturalistic observation?
- Unknown extraneous variables: May be responsible for the behaviour observed (reduces internal validity)
What is a controlled observation?
Watching and recording behaviour in a controlled environment
What are the advantages of a controlled observation?
- High internal validity: High control of variablees and reduce likelihood of an extraneous variable being responsible for the behaviour observed
- High reliability: Using the same standardised procedures
What is a disadvantage of a controlled observation?
- Artificial environment: may result in unnatural behaviour
What is an overt obervation?
Participants’ behaviour is watched and recorded with their knowledge and consent
What is an advantage of an overt observation?
- Ethical (principle of informed consent): participants know what they are signing up to and know about their right to withdraw if they wish to do so
What are the disadvantages of an overt observation?
- Demand characteristics: participants know they’re being observed anmay alter their behaviour
- Social desirability bias: Acting to look good
What is a covert observation?
Participants’ behaviour is being watched and recorded without their knowledge or consent
What is an advantage of a covert observation?
Free from demand characteristics - participants are unaware they’re being observed
What is a disadvantage of a covert observation?
- Unethical: participants cannot give informed consent
What is a participant obervation?
Research becomes a member of the group whose behaviour they are watching and recording
What is an advantage of a participant observation?
- Research can buil more rapport, trust and comfort as they can lead to participants to behave more naturally and can disclose more
What is a disadvantage of a participant observation?
- Researcher can lose objectivity: interpretation of the behaviour may be biased as they only see from the participants point of view
What is a non participant observation?
Researcher remains outside of the group whose behaviour they are watching and recording
What is an advantage of a non participant observation?
- Researcher more likely to remain objective in the interpretation of the participants’ behaviour
What is a disadvantage of a non participant observation?
- Lack of trust and rapport: researcher can miss out on important insight and participants may not behave naturally
What is an observational design?
The choice of behaviours to record and how they are measured
What are operationalised behavioural categories?
- Used in structured observations where target behaviours are categorised into behavioural categories
- Needs to be clear and ambiguous so doesn’t require further interpretation by the researcher
What is time sampling?
Target individual or group is observed and the researcher records the behaviour in a fixed time frame
What is an advantage of time sampling?
More flexibility to record unexpected types of behaviour
What is a disadvantage of time sampling?
Can miss behaviour that occurs outside the time period
What is event sampling?
A target behaviour is established and the researcher records this event every time it occurs
What is an advantage of event sampling?
It’s appropriate when the behaviour occurs infrequently
What is a disadvantage of event sampling?
It’s wouldn’t be appropriate if the event is too complex as the observer may overlook important details
What is a questionnaire?
A set of written questions used to access a person’s thoughts or experiences
What is an open question?
Where there is no fixed choice of response
What is a closed question?
A question where there is a fixed choice of responses that is determined by the person who sets the questions
What are the strengths of using questionnaires?
- Cost effective: can get large amounts of data / can be distributed to large numbers of people
- Straightforward to analyse: made up of closed qs
What are the limitations of using questionnaires?
- Responses may not be truthful: keen to present themselves in a positive light
- Acquiescent bias: can reply in a similar way
What is an interview?
A live encounter where one person asks a set of questions to assess a person’s thoughts or experiences
What are the three types of interviews
- Structured
- Semi-Structured
- Unstructered
What are the three common errors in question design?
- Overuse of jargon
- Emotive language and leading questions
- Double barrelled questions
What is a structured interview?
Interviewer reads our a list of prepared questions in the order as they are written
What are the advantages of structured interview?
- Reliable: Standardised, everyone gets the same questions
- Reduces interviewer bias: Interviewer is following a standardised procedure so impact on answers will reduce
What is a disadvantage of structured interviews?
- Low validity: Responses from participants can’t be followed up with additional questions that provide more detail
What is an unstructured interview?
Where the interviewer doesn’t have a list of questions and is an informal, free flowing conversation with a general topic to discuss
What is an advantage of an unstructured interview?
Interviewer can ask a follow up question on any info they think is important
What are disadvantages of an unstructured interview?
- Low reliability: No set interview schedule so it’s not standardised
- Data analysis: Interviewer may shift through irrelevant information to find what they want
What is a semi structured interview?
A combination of prepared questions with the ability to ask additional questions
What is an advantage of a semi structured interview?
- Social desirability is reduced: able to establish sufficient rapport as they can gain info through follow up questions to see if they’re lying
What are the disadvantages of semi structured interviews?
- Interviewer bias: can ask follow up questions which may impact their answers
- Data analysis can be mixed: predetermined questions would be straightforward/unstructured questions would be difficult to analyse
What is content analysis?
A technique for analysing qualitative data
- Aim is to summarise and describe data in a systematic way so conclusions can be drawn
What are the advantages of content analysis?
- Produces data high in ecological validity: artefacts based on real world applications
- Flexible research method: Easy to get sample as data already exists
- Increased validity as researchers can analyse data w the same categories
What are the disadvantages of content analysis?
- Observer bias: Tend to interpret data in a way that supports their pre-existing views
- Tells us what rather than why: No reasoning or meaning behind the data
What is a thematic analysis?
Identifying ideas or themes within the data and themes will emerge once data has been analysed
What are case studies?
An in depth investigation, description or analysis on a single individual, group or event
- Typically involves analysis of unusual behaviour
What are the advantages of case studies?
- Rich and detailed insight on atypical behaviour: allows us to understand more about human behaviour
- Range of data collected results in realism: holistic approach suggests the depth of detail gives highly valid insights and true reflection of one’s experience
What are the disadvantages of case studies?
- Tend to involve a single individual/ small group: too abnormal to generalise/unknown factors may cause unusual behaviour
- Cannot be replicated: exact replication for reliability would not be possible/unethical
What is the difference between a correlation and an experiment?
- Experiments require the manipulation of the IV and a measurement of the resulting change in the DV
- In a correlation, no variables are manipulated, two co-variables are measured and compared to look for a relationship
What are co-variables?
- The two factors that are measured/collected by the researcher and then compared to each other
What is a scattergram?
- A graph used to plot the measurements of two co-variables
What is a positive correlation?
- As one co-variable increases, the other co-variable increases
What is a negative correlation?
- As one co-variable increases, the other co-variable decreases
What is classed as a strong correlation?
0.8-1
What is classed as a mild correlation?
0.5-0.8
What is classed as a weak correlation?
0.3-0.5
What is classed as having no correlation?
0-0.3
What are the advantages of correlations?
- Relatively quick and cost effective to carry out
- Useful as a preliminary tool for research in terms of describing both the direction and strength of relationships between factors
What are the disadvantages of correlations?
- Due to the lack of experimental manipulation and control, studies can only tell us that variables are related
- Suffer from third variable problem where another untested variable is causing the relationship between the co-variables
- Usually misused or misinterpreted
What is qualitative data?
- Data expressed in words and may be a written description of participants’ thoughts, feelings and opinions or a written account of what the researcher saw
What is an advantage of using qualitative data?
- Rich in detail: participants aren’t limited to the responses they can give, leading to higher validity
What are the disadvantages of using qualitative data?
- Data gather may be open to interpretation and possibly biased
- Difficult to analyse - not reliable
What is quantitative data?
- Data expressed numerically
- Can be converted into charts and graphs and can be statistically analysed
What are the advantages of quantitative data?
- Objectively measured, reducing bias and increasing scientific credibility
- Simple to analyse: summarised into graphs, charts and tables
What are the disadvantages of quantitative data?
- Narrower in scope and meaning: Don’t get to know people’s opinions behind their answers, reducing external validity
What is primary data?
- Original, first hand data collected for the purpose of the study by the researcher
What are the advantages of primary data?
- Increased validity as data is collected to answer the research the research question directly
- Researcher can control the data collection process carefully
What is a disadvantage of primary data?
- Time consuming for the researcher in terms of planning, preparing and resourcing the study
What is secondary data?
- Data collected by someone else other than the researcher and has not been collected specifically for their study
What is an advantage of secondary data?
- ALready exists and analysed, reducing time needed to conduct research
What are the disadvantages of secondary data?
- Decreased validity: data is not collected to answer the research question directly
- Decreased validity: researcher had no role in data collection process so cannot ensure data was free from bias
What is meta-analysis?
- Process that collects and combines the results of a range of previously published studies asking similar research questions
- Can statistically combine all the data to produce an overall effect size and population
What are the advantages of carrying out a meta-analysis?
- Large sample size: statistically more powerful than a small num. of participants, can draw general conclusions
- Studies testing the same variable in various contexts can be compared, revealing unexpected relationships
What are the disadvantages of carrying out a meta-analysis?
- Same weaknesses as secondary data
- Choice of which studies to include/exclude could be biased
What is the mode?
- The most frequent score in a quantitative data set
What are the advantages of the mode?
- Not distorted by outliers
- Giving the modal group is the only way of giving the average of data in categories
What are the disadvantages of the mode?
- Can be no modes if every value is different or multiple modes // doesn’t give an exact average value
What is the median?
- The central value in a data set when values are arranged from lowest to highest
What are the advantages of the median?
- As it’s the central value, its calculation is not affected by outliers
- Easy to calculate
What are the disadvantages of the median?
- Doesn’t include all of the values in its calculation, noto sensitive as the mean measure // not representative of data as a whole
What is the mode?
The arithmetic average, calculated by adding all the values and then dividing by the number of values there are
What is the advantage of the mode?
- All raw data points are used in calculating the mean, making it he most sensitive measure of central tendency
What is the disadvantage of the mean?
- Due to the sensitivity, it’s distorted by outliers
What is standard deviation?
- A calculation which tells us how much scores deviate from the mean by calculating between the mean and each score
- The smaller the SD, the tighter the spread within the data set, meaning people are impacted similarly by an IV in an experiment
What are the advantages of standard deviation?
- Includes all values in its calculation
- SD provides info about the spread of scores
What are the disadvantages of standard deviation?
- Extreme stores distort the SD
- Difficult to calculate
What is a bar chart?
- Summaries the frequency of nominal data
- Categories are laced on x-axis and the frequency is placed on the y-axis
What is a histogram?
- Displays the frequency of continuous numerical data
- Continuous data is placed on the x-axis and the frequency is placed on the y-axis
What is a line graph?
- Uses continuous data which is plotted on the x-axis and the dots are joined up by a line
- Frequency is plotted on the y-axis
What is classed as a normal distribution?
- The graph forms a symmetrical bell-shaped distribution curve
Characteristics of normal distributions: MMM
- Mode: The highest point in a histogram
- Median: An equal number of scores on each side (symmetrical)
- Mean: An equal num. of outliers
What is a skewed distribution?
- The distribution of scores is asymmetric
Characteristics of a positive skew
- More low scores in the data
- Distribution is concentrated towards the left of the graph
Characteristics of a negative skew
- More high scores in the data
- Distribution is concentrated towards the right of the graph
What is a peer review?
- The assessment of scientific work by others who are specialists in the same field to ensure that any research intended for publication is of high quality
What are the 3 main aims of peer review?
- To allocate research funding
- To validate the quality and relevance of the research
- To suggest amendments or improvements: researchers are less objective about their own work
What are the advantages of peer review?
- Establishes validity and accuracy of the research: prevents acceptance of incorrect work
- Usually anonymous: produce a more honest appraisal of the work
What are the disadvantages of peer review?
- Blinding is problematic: reviewers may use anonymity to criticise rival researchers
- Publication bias: publishing positive findings to increase credibility and circulation of their publication
What is nominal data?
- The frequency count of a particular variable is recorded through a set of categories
What is ordinal data?
- Has the same properties as nominal data but the categories have a natural order
What is interval data?
- Interval scales are precise due to having equal intervals between each adjacent point in a standardised scale
What is a type 1 error?
- When researchers accept the alternate hypothesis (reject null) in error, the data collected has passed the level of significance, bt really the findings were due to chance variation
What is a type 2 error?
When researchers reject the alternate hypothesis (accept null) in error, the data collected has not passed the level of significance but really the participants not acting as expected is due to the chance variation hiding the relationship between IV and DV
What is a correlation coefficient?
Represents both the strength and direction of the relationship between the co-variables as a number between -1 and +1
