Research Methods in I/O Psychology Flashcards
What are the 3 goals of Science?
Description, Prediction, and Explanation
What is the Scientific Method?
Statement of research problem→ Design of research study→ Measurement of variables→ Analysis of Data→ Conclusions from research
What is a Theory?
A set of interrelated concepts that tries to systematically explain a phenomena
What are Inductive and Deductive methods of research?
Inductive: Starts with data, ends with theory-Conclusions about general class of objects drawn from specifics
Deductive: Starts with theory, ends with data (to support or to conflict)-Conclusions about specific object drawn from general
What is Internal and External Validity?
Internal- Degree to which research findings are accurate or true
External- Extent to which research findings are relevant to population outside of study
What is a Primary research method?
Class of research methods that generates new info on a particular research question
What are the 3 types of Primary Research Methods?
True Experiment (Investigator manipulates independent variables and randomly assigns experimental and control groups, not that generalizable),
Quasi-Experiment (No random assignment, Higher generalizability),
Non-Experiment (No manipulation or assignment, very generalizable, cannot find causation)
What is a Secondary research method?
Examining existing info from primary research studies
What are the 3 types of Secondary Research Methods?
Archival Research (Extraction of info from existing records), Meta-analysis (summarizing and integrating findings form other research), Data Mining (Looking for patterns of association within large data sets
What is a multilevel phenomenon in I/O Psychology?
When Individuals come together the results are greater than just adding up each person’s traits. I/O studies these phenomena in the workplace
What is the File-drawer effect?
Meta-analysis: People don’t publish research that don’t show correlation, causation, etc.
What is Qualitative Research?
(typically inductive), Researcher takes an active role in the subjects they are studying
What are the 3 purposes for conducting a scientific study?
Personal, Practical, and research
What are the different types of qualitative research?
Ethnography- Fields observations to study a society’s culture with Emic(internal) and Etic(external) perspectives
Thematic analysis- Identifying patterns within the data and gathering examples that fit within that pattern
What is actual criteria?
An operational measure intended to reflect conceptual criterion
What is criterion deficiency?
Degree to which actual criteria fails to overlap conceptual criteria- Can be reduced but not eliminate
What is criterion relevance?
Degree that actual criteria actually measures conceptual criteria
What is criteria contamination?
Parts of actual criteria that is unrelated to/distorts the concept being measured. Due to either Bias (actual criteria measures something else) or Error(Actual criteria is related to absolutely nothing). Can be controlled to some degree
What is reliability?
Is the test producing stable and consistent results? Forms the baseline of validity. A test is only as good as it is reliable
What is validity?
A judgment of how well a measurement adequately measures the construct
What are the 4 threats to internal validity?
History effect- Something historical that occurs in life will change the data
Maturation effect- Something in the data that just changes over time
Selection effect- People who opt in for a study might have different traits that population we are studying
Attrition effect- People naturally falling off a study
What are the 4 sources of data?
Organizational records- Information collected and maintained by an organization gathered for non research purposes
Questionnaires- Subjects respond to written questions
Observation-
Interview/focus group- Individuals/small but diverse groups of people in a facilitated QnA about predetermined topics
What is Effect size?
The magnitude of any given relationship, like correlation coefficient (r, ranges from -1.00 to +1.00, positive or negative)
What are 3 determinants of causality?
Covariance- You cannot say A causes B if B doesn’t change
Time Order of Events- If B happens before A, then A doesn’t cause B
Lack of Alternative- If C is happening while using A, then you can’t fully say A causes causes B
All these need to be met to determine causality
