Week 3 - Method overview

Question 1

explain the nature of causation and how researchers establish cause-and-effect relationships

Answer 1

Cause and effect: changes in one variable produces changes in another variable.
Required for causal relationship-
1- Iv and DV must be associated/related
1- changes in IV must precede changes in DV
3- no nuisance or confounding variables.

Question 2

describe the key characteristics of the experimental research approach as used in psychology, including the advantages and disadvantages

Answer 2

Experimental research attempts to demonstrate cause and effect relationship.
Psychology experiment- Objective observation of phenomena that are made to occur in a controlled situation where one or more factors are varied and the others are kept constant.
Advantages: Can discover causal relationships, the ability to manipulate variables, and control to show validity.
Disadvantages: some variables (like age, genetics, weather etc) cant be manipulated, results obtained in sterile experiment conditions sometimes don’t apply or replicate in real life., and sees humans as manipulable, replicable objects.

Question 3

explain the differences between non-experimental and experimental quantitative research methods

Answer 3

Quantitative (numerical) data in an experiment seeks cause and effect, in a non-experimental design it seeks investigation or correlation at most.

Question 4

define and explain the goals and characteristics of qualitative research

Answer 4

Qualitative - investigates people in particular naturalistic situations.
Case studies etc.

Question 5

compare and contrast the six major methods of data collection.

Answer 5

Tests
Questionnaires/surveys
Interviews
Focus groups
Observations
Existing/secondary data

Cross sectional- data collected only once
Longitudinal - data collected multiple times.