Research Methods I Flashcards
Belief Perseverance
Certain about one’s knowledge, maintains belief even if the belief is false.
Confirmation Bias
Seek out info that confirms one’s beliefs, ignoring info that contradicts
Availability heuristic
Overestimating memorable events, presuming how often they occur
Illusory Correlation
Believing a relationship exists when there is none
Objectivity
Without bias from experimenter or participants
Data-Driven
Conclusions based on data-objective info
Scientific Method
Way of knowing through objective, empirical methods to search for causes of natural events
Theory
- Logically consistent statements about a phenomenon that:
- Summarizes existing empirical knowledge
- Forms knowledge into precise statements of relationships
- Proposes explanation of phenomenon
- Serves basis for making predictions
Deduction
Reasoning from general statements toward prediction of an event
Hypothesis
Prediction of research result under certain circumstances
Induction
Reasoning from specific events (results of individual studies) to the general (the theory)
A. Beneficence & Nonmaleficence
Weigh the benefits & costs of research; seek to achieve the greatest good with little harm
B. Fidelity & Responsibility
Aware of responsibility to society; highest standards of professional behavior.
C. Integrity
Honest in all research
D. Justice
Treat everyone with fairness; maintain level expertise to reduce bias
E. Respect for People’s Rights & Dignity
Safeguard confidentiality & protect rights of these volunteering as research participants
8.01 Institutional Approach
Accurate info about research proposals, obtain approval for research.
8.02 Informed Consent to Research
Inform participants of purpose ability to decline/withdraw consequences of declining/withdrawing factors that influence their willingness to participate, research benefits, confidentiality limits, incentives, questions & their rights.
8.03 Recording Voices & Images
Obtain informed consent observations or research involves decepetion.
8.04 Client, Student & Subordinate Res. Subj.
Protect participants from consequences of declining/withdrawing. Give alternative & equitable activities if participation is given in form of course credit or extra credit.
8.05 Dispensing with Informed Consent
Dispense informed consent when it doesn’t create distress or harm & involves educational practices participation doesn’t put one at risk for criminal or civil liability, study is related to job or organization effectiveness, otherwise permitted by law or federal or institutional regulations.
8.06 Offering Inducements
Avoid making excessive or inappropriate inducements when offering inducements, clarify services as well as risk, obligations, & limitations.
8.07 Deception
Deception is justified for the study’s value. Deception is not done to cause physical pain or emotional distress. Deception must be an integral feature of the design.
8.08 Debriefing
Participants are debriefed about the research and correct any misconceptions. If they must withhold the info, psychologists reduce risk of harm. If research procedures harmed a participant, they attempt to minimize harm.
8.09 Humane Care & Use of Animals
Animals are handled by regulations & standards; state, federal & professional. Individuals have received training to handle these animals. Minimize discomfort or pain of animals, surgical procedures are done to avoid infection & minimize pain. When appropriate, minimize pain if an animal’s life be terminated.
8.10 Reporting Research Results
No fabricated data. If there are errors, they are corrected.
8.11 Plagiarism
Cannot present portions of another’s work as their own even if the data is cited.
8.12 Publication Credit
Credit is received only for work they have performed & contributed to. Must have been involved in their contributions.
8.13 Duplicate Publication of Data
No publication of data that’s already published.
8.14 Sharing Research Data for Verification
Do not withheld data from other professionals who want to reanalyze.
8.15 Reviewers
Those that review material must respect the confidentiality and rights of the info of those who submitted it.
Scales of Measurement
Categorizing events (qualitative) or describe the size of the event (quantitatives).
Qualitative
Categorical
Quantitative
Descriptive
Nominal
- Labeled & categorized
- Male/female, hair color, names of people, etc.
Ordinal
- Ranking in size or magnitudes.
- Socio-economic status, education level, income level, satisfaction ratings, etc.
Interval Scale
- Equal differences on a scale reflecting differences in magnitude.
- Temperature, SAT score, credit score, rating scale, etc.
Ratio Scale
- Reflect ratio of magnitudes. Absolute zero point.
- Height, weight, etc.
Discrete variables
Separate categories. No values exist between two neighboring categories.
Dichotomous variable
Two categories of a variable.
Continuous variables
Infinite number of possible values between any two observations. Divisible. Separate intervals. Low & upper limit.
Construct
- Can’t be observed directly, inferred from certain behaviors.
- Measurement can be replicated; faithful proxy of construct.
- Use different kinds of measurement for faithful proxies of what we want to measure.
Reliability
Reproducibility of a measure; measures of the same phenomenon are consistent & repeatable; high reliability = minimum measurement error.
Classical Reliability Theory
Assumptions:
- True score = constant
- Error = Random
- Correlation between trues scores & errors = 0
- Correlation between errors of different measurement = 0. Error assumed random.
Item Response Theory
- Based on response patterns of items.
- Item based. Scored differently based on difficulty level.
- Differences in ability to discriminate between test takers.
- Discriminates well for all parts of distribution.
Validity
- Measuring the intended construct.
- Validity assumes reliability. Measures can be reliable, but not valid.
- “Does reaction time represent speed of processing in semantic memory?”
Content Validity
Adequately measures construct, connects to a familiar concept – operational definition.
Multitrait-Multimethod Metric
Checks construct validity by looking at different traits and methods.
Face Validity
Occurs when a measure appears to be a reasonable measure of some trait.
Criterion Validity
Form of validity in which a psychological measure is able to predict some future behavior or is meaningfully related to some other measure.
Predictive Validity
Your measure predicts future behavior or attitude.
Concurrent Valdiity
Does your measures give scores that agree with other related measures.
Construct Validity
- Most rigorous.
- When the measure being used accurately assesses some hypothetical construct; refers to when the construct itself a valid; refers to whether the operational definitions used for independent & dependent variables are valid.
Heterotrait-Monomethod Triangles
Same method, different traits.
Locus of control + Questionnaire, compare with self-esteem + questionnaire.
Heterotrait-Heteromethod Triangles
- Different method, different traits – lowest correlations.
- Self esteem using an interview, locus of control using a collateral report.
Descriptive Statistics
Summary of data from participants.
Inferential Statistics
Draw conclusions if data can be applied to population.
Population
General group.
Sample
Subset of general group
Random sampling
Probability sampling. Each member of population has equal chance of being selected for sample.
Population Parameter
Describes characteristic of a population of scores symbolized by Greek letter
Sample Statistics
Describes characteristic of sample of scores, symbolized by English letter
Experiment
- Research procedure in one independent variable is manipulated, scores on dependent variable are measured, and all other variables are held constant.
- Determines a cause-and-effect relationship between two variables.