week 4- quantitative research

Question 1

What is the purpose of research design?

Answer 1

Provides a plan to aid in solving problems, answering questions, and testing hypotheses.

Question 2

What does research design involve?

Answer 2

A plan, structure, and strategy.

Question 3

How does research design maintain internal validity?

Answer 3

It allows researchers to apply levels of control.

Question 4

What is control in research design?

Answer 4

Strategies used by the researcher to control for bias and extraneous variables.

Question 5

What can control strategies include?

Answer 5

Inclusion/exclusion criteria to ensure the sample represents the targeted population.

Question 6

What is bias in research?

Answer 6

Distortion of the results that isn’t a true reflection of what’s being investigated.

Question 7

What considerations can help avoid bias?

Answer 7

Objectivity, accuracy, feasibility, control.

Question 8

What is objectivity in research?

Answer 8

Use of facts without distortion by personal feelings or bias.

Question 9

How is objectivity derived?

Answer 9

From a review of the literature and development of a theoretical framework.

Question 10

What does accuracy in research mean?

Answer 10

All aspects of a study systematically and logically follow from the research problem.

Question 11

What is feasibility in research design?

Answer 11

Capability of the study to be successfully carried out.

Question 12

What factors affect the feasibility of a study?

Answer 12

Timing, costs/data analysis cost, facility and equipment availability, reliability and validity of new measurement tools, researcher experience, ethics.

Question 13

What factors affect the feasibility of recruitment?

Answer 13

Type of intervention, availability of participants, data-collection protocol, likelihood that participants will complete the study.

Question 14

What is an extraneous variable?

Answer 14

Any variable other than the independent variable that causes changes in the dependent variable.

Question 15

What are strategies to control for extraneous variables?

Answer 15

Homogeneous sampling, consistency in data collection, manipulation of the independent variable, randomization.

Question 16

What is internal validity?

Answer 16

Degree to which the experimental treatment, not an uncontrolled condition, resulted in the observed effects.

Question 17

What is external validity?

Answer 17

Concerns the generalizability of the results.

Question 18

What factors affect internal validity?

Answer 18

History, maturation, selection, testing, mortality, instrumentation.

Question 19

What is a history threat?

Answer 19

A specific concurrent event may affect the dependent variable.

Question 20

What is selection bias?

Answer 20

When pretreatment differences exist between the experimental group and the control group.

Question 21

What are maturation effects?

Answer 21

Developmental, biological, or psychological processes that operate within an individual as a function of time.

Question 22

What are testing effects?

Answer 22

Taking the same test repeatedly could influence the participants’ response the next time it is completed.

Question 23

What is mortality in research?

Answer 23

Loss of study participants from the first data-collection point to the second data-collection point.

Question 24

What are instrumentation threats?

Answer 24

Changes in the variables or observational techniques that may account for changes in the obtained measurement.

Question 25

What are threats to external validity?

Answer 25

Selection effects, reactive effects, measurement effects.

Question 26

What is a selection effect?

Answer 26

When the researcher cannot attain the ideal sample population.

Question 27

What is the reactivity or Hawthorne effect?

Answer 27

Participants' responses to being studied.

Question 28

What is a measurement effect?

Answer 28

Administration of a pretest study affects the generalizability of the findings to other populations.

Question 29

What is reliability in research?

Answer 29

Extent to which the instrument yields the same results on repeated measures.

Question 30

What is validity in research?

Answer 30

Whether a measurement instrument actually measures what it is intended to measure.

Question 31

Does a measurement tool always have to be both reliable and valid?

Answer 31

No, a thermostat is reliable but not valid for measuring blood pressure.

Question 32

What are important considerations for choosing research design?

Answer 32

Appropriate for research question, maximizes control, holds conditions constant, specific sampling criteria, maximizes level of evidence.

Question 33

What characterizes experimental design?

Answer 33

Randomization, control, and manipulation.

Question 34

What level of evidence does experimental design provide?

Answer 34

Level 2 evidence.

Question 35

What are the advantages of experimental design?

Answer 35

Most appropriate for testing cause-and-effect relationships, provides the highest level of evidence for single studies, can rule out threats to internal validity.

Question 36

What are the disadvantages of experimental design?

Answer 36

Participant mortality, difficult logistics in field settings, not all research questions are amenable to experimental manipulation, Hawthorne effect.

Question 37

What is a randomized control trial?

Answer 37

Also known as a true experimental design, prospective, ideally double-masked.

Question 38

What are antecedent variables?

Answer 38

Occurs before the study but may affect the dependent variable and confound the results.

Question 39

What are intervening variables?

Answer 39

A condition that occurs during the study and affects the dependent variable.

Question 40

What conditions are needed to establish causality?

Answer 40

1. The causal variable and effect variable must be associated. 2. The cause must precede the effect. 3. The relationship must not be explainable by another variable.

Question 41

What is the Solomon four-group design?

Answer 41

Consists of two groups identical to those in classic experimental design plus two additional groups that don't receive pretest.

Question 42

What is the after-only control group design?

Answer 42

Composed of two groups, neither of which are given a pretest.

Question 43

What is quasi-experimental design?

Answer 43

Random assignment is not used, but the independent variable is manipulated.

Question 44

What is a nonequivalent control group design?

Answer 44

Same as randomized control trial, but no randomization.

Question 45

What is an after-only nonequivalent control group design?

Answer 45

Same as randomized control trial, but no pretest and no randomization.

Question 46

What is a one-group pretest-posttest design?

Answer 46

Only experimental group, no control.

Question 47

What is a time series design?

Answer 47

Only experimental, multiple pre/post tests.

Question 48

What are the advantages of quasi-experimental design?

Answer 48

Practical and more feasible, especially in clinical settings.

Question 49

What are the disadvantages of quasi-experimental design?

Answer 49

Difficult to make clear cause-and-effect statements.

Question 50

What is non-experimental design?

Answer 50

Used to construct a picture of a phenomena at one point or over a period.

Question 51

What are relationship studies?

Answer 51

Correlational, developmental, cross-sectional, longitudinal, retrospective.

Question 52

What are descriptive studies?

Answer 52

Used to accurately portray characteristics of people, situations, groups, or frequency of phenomena.

Question 53

What are exploratory studies?

Answer 53

Used to explore dimensions of a phenomena or develop/redefine hypotheses.

Question 54

What are comparative studies?

Answer 54

Seek to find relationships between independent variable and dependent variable after an action or event has occurred.

Question 55

What are correlational studies?

Answer 55

Explores relationship between variables without active intervention.

Question 56

What are ex post facto studies?

Answer 56

Research conducted after variations in independent variable have occurred naturally.

Question 57

What are retrospective studies?

Answer 57

Begins with manifestation of dependent variable in the present, then searches for presumed cause in the past.

Question 58

What are prospective studies?

Answer 58

Begins with examination of presumed causes, then goes forward in time to observe presumed effects.

Question 59

What are cross-sectional studies?

Answer 59

Data collected at one point in time.

Question 60

What are longitudinal studies?

Answer 60

Data collected from the same group at more than one point in time.

Question 61

What are the advantages of non-experimental designs?

Answer 61

Important to develop knowledge base, useful in forecasting, testing theoretical models, and informing new areas of research.

Question 62

What are the disadvantages of non-experimental designs?

Answer 62

Difficulty explaining cause-and-effect.