Research Methods Part 4 Flashcards
What does correlation illustrates?
What two things does a correlational hypothesis have?
What do these variables still have to be?
What are the two types of hypothesis for correlation?
What are we talking about when referring to correlation?
What are positive and negative correlations?
What are no correlations?
What are the four key features of a correlational study?
The strength and direction of a relationship between two variables
Two co-variables
Operationalized
Directional and non-directional hypothesis
Talking about co-variables
Directional correlational hypothesis
Non-directional correlational hypothesis
- A correlation measures the relationship between two variables
- The relationship can be positive or negative
- The relationship can be strong or weak
- A correlation can be represented on a scatter gram and analysed using a Spearman’s Rho or Pearson’s R (Pearson’s product moment correlational coefficient) and provide quantitative data.
What is positive correlation?
What is negative correlation?
What is no correlation?
What is the definition of self report technique?
What is the definition of a questionnaire?
What is the definition of an interview
What is the definition of response bias?
What is the definition of acquiescence bias?
As one variable increases, so does the other one
As one variable increases, the other one decreases
There is no relationship between those two variables
Any method in which a person is asked to state or explain their own feelings, opinions, behaviours and/or experiences related to a given topic
A set of written questions (sometimes referred to as items) used to assess a person’s thoughts and/or experiences
A “live” encounter (face to face or on the phone) where one person (interviewer) asks a set of questions to assess an interviewee’s thoughts and/or experiences
Where respondents tend to reply in a similar way, for instance always ticking yes
The tendency to agree with items on a questionnaire regardless of the content of the question.
What are open questions?
What type of data do open questions tend to produce?
What are closed questions?
What type of data do closed questions tend to produce?
What are three strengths of questionnaires?
What are three weaknesses of questionnaires?
What are structured interviews?
What is a positive of structured interviews?
What is a negative of structured interviews?
Don’t have a fixed range of answers and respondents are free to answer in any way they wish
Tend to produce qualitative data that is rich in depth and detail but may be difficult to analyse
Offers a fixed number of responses
Produces numerical data by limiting the answers respondents can give
+ Cost effective, gathering large amounts of data quickly because they can be distributed to large numbers of people
+ Can be completed without the researcher being present
+ Data produced is usually straightforward to analyse (statistical analysis)
- Responses given may not always be truthful
- Respondents may be keen to present themselves in a positive light and this may influence their answers
- May produce response bias
Made up of pre-determined set of questions that are asked in a fixed order
+ Like questionnaires are straightforward to replicate due to standardised format—> also reducing differences between interviewers
- Not possible, given nature of structured interview, for interviewers to deviate from the topic or elaborate their points, and this may be a source of frustration for some.
What are unstructured interviews?
What are two positives of unstructured interviews?
What are two negatives of unstructured interviews?
What are semi-structured interviews?
What are the two types of statistics?
What two things are we talking about when talking about descriptive statistics?
What is the definition of descriptive statistics?
What is the definition of measures of central tendency?
Works like a conversation. There are no set questions. General aim that a certain topic will be discussed
+ Much more flexibility in unstructured than in a structured interview
+ Interview can follow up points as arise and much more likely to gain insight into the worldview of the interviewee
- Analysis of data from unstructured interview is not straightforward
- Risk interviewees lying for reasons of social desirability (like questionnaires)
There’s a list of questions that have been worked out in advance but interviews are also free to ask follow up questions when they feel it is appropriate
Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics
Dispersion and central tendency
The use of graphs, tables and summary statistics to identify trends and analyse sets of data
The general term for any measure of the average value in a set of data.
What are the two points about the mean?
What are the three points about the median?
What are the two points about the mode?
What two things are measures of dispersion based upon?
What is the range?
What is standard deviation?
What does it mean the larger the standard deviation?
What does a low standard deviation value indicate and what does this mean?
- Most sensitive measure of central tendency- prone to distortion as a result of anomalous data and extremes
- Includes all data so most representative
- Extreme scores do not have the same effect as they do on the mean
- Easy to calculate
- Less sensitive as not all scores are included in the final calculation
- Crude measurement- not really representative of the whole data set
- Can vary wildly from other average types
A spread of scores and how far these scores vary and differ from one another
Take lowest value from the highest value
Identifies how much scores deviate from the mean
The greater the spread within a data set
That the data is tightly clustered around the mean meaning that participants responded in a similar way.
What do distribution graphs measure?
What is the definition of normal distribution?
What is the definition of skewed distribution?
What is the definition of positive skew?
What is the definition of negative skew?
The frequency of scores
A symmetrical spread of frequency data that forms a bell-shaped pattern. The mean, median and mode are all located at the highest peak
A spread of frequency data that is not symmetrical, where the data clusters to one end
A type of distribution in which the long tail is on the positive (right) side of the peak and most of the distribution is concentrated on the left
A type of distribution in which the long tail is on the negative (left) side of the peak and most of the distribution is concentrated on the right.
