Test 3 Flashcards
(T/F)Experimental designs are largely used to make inferences about the communication practices of a large population.
F
(T/F) Experimental designs have low external validity
T
Which of the following best describes an outcome of using random assignment in experimental designs?
Random assignment guards against selection biases because participants cannot self-select exposure to the treatment group.
Referring to the eye gaze study above: In asking the participants to take the interview seriously, as if it were really a job interview, the researchers were trying to establish:
External Validity
Which of the following is the minimal standard coefficient to argue that an instrument or research coders are performing reliably?
70%
What threat to internal validity occurs when the researcher’s knowledge of the research purpose unconsciously influences his/her treatment of the participants?
Experimenter Effect
Qualitative researchers ensure that their research conclusions “ring true” to the informants of the study. The researchers establish
Credibility
Ethnographers use field notes and reflexive journals to ensure the trustworthiness of their studies.
Tractability
I would like to study what people say when they apologize and how many times they say certain phrases. I want to use all sorts of letters that contain apologies. I should use _______.
Content analysis
A researcher examines the frequency of different kinds of disconfirming messages found in interviews with recently married couples. He conducted frequency counts of messages that were impervious, interrupting, tangential, and others What type of question is guiding this researcher’s quantitative textual analysis?
A question about distributional structure.
(T/F) Manifest content is studying by coding the visible or surface features of the content.
T
(T/F) Quantitative text analysis is more unobtrusive than survey designs
T
Which of the following terms is used to describe what happens when coders begin to interpret the text slightly differently as time passes from the training process?
Coder drift
Dr. Gonzalez had two independent coders unitize his text. The first coder identified 750 units. The second coder identified 765. The two coders agreed on 695 units of analysis. Is the unitizing reliability acceptable?
Yes
What is the name of the people who formally enable (or disable) the researcher’s access to the field?
Gatekeepers
What is the purpose of the literature review in participant observation research?
A literature review provides the theoretical sensitivity for the researcher, preparing her for what might be happening in the phenomenon of interest.
What type of sampling is typically used when selecting the field site in participant observation research?
Purposive
You are conducting a project for an introductory communication studies course. In this project you have decided to examine how people use territorial markers at the largest campus dining hall. Over a four-week period you go to the dining hall at various times of the day, sit in a remote area and watch the students’ use of territorial markers. What kind of role are you taking one in this project?
Complete Observer
Why do participant observers seek to articulate that they have had prolonged engagement in the field?
Prolonged engagement is important for demonstrating the credibility of the interpretations.
When is a participant observer able to confidently leave the field?
The researcher can confidently leave the field once saturation has been achieved. (repeated results)
What comm topics are appropriate to experiment?
1: when some communicated-related variable serves as the independent variable in affecting some attitude, perception, or behavior (dv) –persuasion processes. Measure some feature of a comm message, fear appeal or emotional appeal, to determine whether it produces change in experimental participants attitudes beliefs or behaviors
2: when some noncommunication variable serves as the independent variable in affecting some communication-related dependent variable. “how is communication affected by some phenomenon or factor” –task’s complexity on the effectiveness of decision-making communication.
3: communication-related variables as both the dependent and independent variable.
How is external validity related to experiments?
The generalizability of experimental findings to the real world. Even if the results are an accurate gauge of what happened in the experiment, do they tell us anything about real life in society?
Strengths/weakness of experimental method
+: isolation of the experimental variable and its effect over time. Participants have a certain characteristic and following the administration of an experimental stimulus, they’re found to have a different characteristic
+: little time and money and relatively few participants, we can replicate a given experiment several times
-Artificiality, might not occur in more natural settings
What are the requirements of a casual relationship?
- Time order (IV before DV)
- Correlation between the IV & DV
- No other rival explanations that could explain the relationship between the IV and DV
How do researchers achieve control in experimental studies?
- Equivalent groups: same age, gender, race
- Control extraneous variables
- Manipulation checks:experimental participants are often asked their perceptions of the conditions to which they were exposed
- Double blind
- Random assignment to control and experimental group
Comparison group
No treatment or alternate treatment
