Research Methods Flashcards
define and evaluate content analysis
instead of analysing people etc, they analyse indirectly through books etc.
- Reduces objectivity
- High ecological validity
evaluate the use of case studies
- Rich, in-depth information, info on complex interaction of many interactions
- Good for looking into rare cases
- Can’t generalise because they are rare
define reliability
-How much we can rely on a measurement
how to improve reliability
- Test-retest
- inter-rater
- reduce ambiguity
define validity
-Does the data represent reality
how to improve validity
- Face validity
- Concurrent
features of science
Empirical methods Objectivity Replicability Theory construction Hypothesis testing
the difference between deductive and inductive
Deductive- theory at the beginning
Inductive- theory after testing etc
parametric, correlation
pearsons r
parametric, difference
repeated measures- related t-test
independent measures- unrelated t-test
nominal
independent data- chi squared
repeated measures- sign test
ordinal, correlation
spearman’s rho
ordinal, difference
repeated measures- Wilcoxon
independent groups- Mann-Whitney
evaluate repeated measures
- Participants may do better in the second due to a decrease in anxiety and they have practised in the first, order effects
- May guess the purpose after the first so do better in the second
- use 2 different tests, though they must be equivalent
- stop order effects with counter balancing
evaluate independent groups
- Participant variables- different abilities
- Need moire participants
- To get around this, randomly allocate participants to the different conditions- distribute variables evenly
evaluate matched pairs
- Difficult to match pairs of key variables
- Can’t control all variables because they only need to match relevant pairs
- Restrict the no. of variables they have to match
- Conduct a pilot study to consider key variables that might be important when matching
outline all sampling techniques
- Opportunity sampling- most available people- those walking on the street at that moment
- Random sampling- names in a hat
- Stratified sampling- subgroups within a population are identified, then taken from each strata in proportion of their occurance, then random technique to finsh
- Systematic sampling- selecting every 6th person in a list
- Volunteer sampling- people volunteer to an ad
evaluate opportunity sampling
Easiest, quickest
Biased due to the sample was taken from a small part of the population
evaluate random sampling
Unbiased
Need a list of all people
evaluate stratified sampling
More representative
Time-consuming to identify subgroups
evaluate systematic sampling
Unbiased as we are using a predetermined system
Not truly unbiased unless you use a random method to determine the sampling (no. of number)
evaluate volunteer sampling
Gives access to many participants, more representative
Ps may be more highly motivated or helpful, volunteer bias