Stats & Research Methods Flashcards
1
Q
What are the challenges to the assessment of socio-emotional problems in children?
A
- Rapid developmental transitions (clinical relevance changes over time)
- Lack of data integration from different sources and methods (who has given info/ timeframe/ method)
- Level of impairment and functioning (ability to adapt/ development of skills/ psychical health)
2
Q
What methods are used to assess children?
A
- Questionnaires
- Interviews
- Behavioural assessments
3
Q
What resources are used to assess children?
A
- Children
- Parents
- Teachers
- Peers
- Observers
4
Q
What factors affect children’s accurate responding?
A
- Age
- Interviewing techniques
- Response formats
- Phrasing or complexity of questions
- Factual information versus abstract concepts
5
Q
What are common methodological issues in assessing children?
A
- Presence of observer (issues with reactivity)
- Type of task (structured versus unstructured)
- Location of observations (laboratory or participant’s home).
6
Q
Name the coding categories when assessing children
A
-Exhaustive= Include all the behaviours -Mutually exclusive= Behaviours can be classified as falling into only one category -Reliable= Agreement between two or more observers.
7
Q
What are the +/- of observational methods
A
- Pro’s=
- Researcher defines and chooses target behaviours
- Can look at microscopic processes and mechanisms
- Have data on rates and frequencies.
- Con’s=
- Observations are expensive
- Time consuming
- Require extensive training
8
Q
Outline the Preschool Five Minute Speech Sample
A
-Notes
9
Q
Name the psychophysiological methods
A
- Structural and functional Magnetic Resonance (MRI, fMRI)
- Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS)
- Electroencephalography (EEG) and Event-Related Potentials (ERPs)
- Eye-tracking
10
Q
What is a structural MRI
A
- Measures MR signals from hydrogen over areas of the brain, creating MR images, in which the parts of the brain with more hydrogen would appear brighter than parts of the brain with less hydrogen
- This contrast between tissues dependents on the amount (density) of hydrogen
11
Q
What does the BOLD signal in an functional MRI (fMRI) refer to?
A
- Intrinisc contrast agent (internal body agent) such as oxygen is measured
- fMRI measures if There is an increase in the supply of oxygenated blood to the more active brain cells- this increase in blood flow is greater than oxygen consumption by those cells
- This reduces the amount of de-oxyHb in active brain regions relative to less active regions – which results in an increase in the MR signal (because de-oxyHb reduces the MR signal)
12
Q
What is reverse inference
A
- Activation of a given brain area is specifically associated with a psychological process, then finding activation in that brain area indicates the presence of the associated psychological process
13
Q
What is the validity of reverse inference based on?
A
- How often a pattern of brain activation is detected when the target psychological process is likely to occur (sensitivity)
- How rarely that pattern of brain activation is elicited by other processes (specificity)
14
Q
What are the +/- of fMRI’s
A
- Safe neuroimaging method
- High spatial resolution
- Low temporal resolution
- Patients with metal not suitable
- Claustrophobic
- Noisy so difficult to incorporate auditory stimulus
- Causality inferences
15
Q
What is TMS?
A
-Virtual lesion created through magnetic pulse which can inhibit or excite neurons
16
Q
What confounding variables does TMS create for itself?
A
- Creates loud sharp noise/ sensations on scalp/ muscle twitches which can be confounding
- Can be accounted for by testing against non-target areas
17
Q
What are the +/- of TMS
A
- Relatively high spatial resolution
- High temporal resolution
- Reversible so allows for within subject tests
- Limited to surface regions
- Subtle effects which can be hard to measure
18
Q
What are EEG’s/ ERP’s
A
-EEG measures local field potential of neurons, ERP is a segment of an EEG often taken when a stimulus is presented
19
Q
What are the +/- of EEG’s/ ERP’s
A
- High temporal resolution
- Low spatial resolution, inverse problem
- ERP can isolate neuron firing signatures of a certain processes
20
Q
What is eye tracking?
A
- Fovea (only area with colour receptors) has highest visual resolution allowing for cortical magnification as it has a dedicated dis-proportionally large brain area for processing
- Measured via infra red which reflected, this is weaker in the centre of the fovea (pupil) which measures timing location/velocity/path of movement
21
Q
What are the +/- of eye tracking?
A
- High temporal and spatial resolution
- Difficult to monitor covert attention and what exactly is being attended to
- Challenging for those with corrected vision or visual aids
22
Q
What four main principles must be considered in the study of animals?
A
- Sampling= who to watch and what to measure
- Recording= how to record and when to measure
23
Q
What is an ethogram?
A
-List of behaviours being observed with definition for each
24
Q
What are the sampling techniques?
A
- Ad libitum= all behaviours recorded
- Focal= focus on an individual
- Scan= scan group ta regular intervals
- Behavioural= record occurrence of particular behaviour
25
What are the recording techniques?
- Continuous= exact record of behaviours for each occurence
- Instantaneous= divide sample period into short intervals and record behaviour on the time point
- One-zero= record whether behaviour has occurred in sample period
26
What are the measures of behaviour?
- frequency= number of occurrences
- Duration
- Latency= time form specific stim to occurrence of behaviour
- Bout= A/B/C behaviours assessed as whole behaviour such as duet of singing birds
27
What is a time-activity budget
- Time + energy = motivation
- If not timed a rate of occurrence used (displayed as frequency)
- Group average is used error bars are plotted on graph and if continuous method used no error bars
28
How should animals be compared statistically?
-One-sample t-test; good for comparing a treatment against
a baseline.
- Paired t-tests, good for comparing data from a population
measured twice.
- You’ve measured a behaviour in a range of sexes or ages
groups, and you want to see where a difference lies? Posthoc tests for a one-way ANOVA.
- Repeated measures testing... Really good models available
to provide strong analysis of experiments using the same individual
29
What are the 5 contingent problems in qualitative methods?
- The deletion of the interviewer (body language/ structure of transcript)
- The conventions of representation of interaction
- The specificity of observations
- The unavailability of the interview set-up (recruitment process/ where parts of transcript are originally from)
- The failure to consider interviews as interaction.
30
What are the benefits of using a tape recorder
- The researcher can concentrate and listen and respond better
- The discussion flows better when there are no distractions
- In note taking there is an increased risk of the researcher being more subjective
- The entire interview/observation is recorded, which gives a better, more holistic picture of what is going on
- The participants may feel less observed if the tape recorded is used in a discreet way
- During analysis, the researcher has the opportunity to go back over material
31
What are sources of naturally occurring data?
- Helpline data
- Mediation
- Weight loss data
- Police Interview
32
What is discourse analysis?
- The study of language to make inferences about interaction
- Focuses on management of relations between mental states and external world through empirical analysis of talk and text in context
33
What does discourse analysis study?
- speaker interactions
- Narratives functions in areas such as sex offender therapy and role of cognitive distortion
- How people build descriptions
34
What are the epistemological assumptions of discourse analysis?
-common sense analysis concept that everyday life is contextual so does not need to be altered to be scientifically quantifiable
35
What are the criticisms of discourse analysis?
-Subjectivity=
Data are interpreted and therefore influenced by the personal experiences and beliefs of the researcher.
-Replicability =
Because the researcher influences the data, it cannot necessarily be replicated.
-Generalisability=
There is no attempt to recruit a ‘representative’ sample and the people selected do not reflect the population.
-Transparency=
It is sometimes difficult to establish exactly what was done and how conclusions were arrived at.
-Credibility
Is the researcher’s interpretation of the data credible?
(Respondent validation/
Triangulation)
-Transferability
Is the description provided rich enough in detail for others to make judgements about its transferability to other milieux? -Dependability
Can the research be “audited”?
-Confirmability
Is it apparent that the researcher has not overtly allowed personal values or theoretical inclinations to influence the interpretation
36
How can DA criticisms be combated?
- More than one investigator (credibility).
- More than one method (triangulation) (credibility).
- “Thick description” (transferability).
- Research should be conducted in an explicit and systematic way (dependability).
- Meticulous record keeping, including a separate diary (dependability).
- Openness and honesty about theoretical perspectives and biases (confirmability).
