5.0 Research design Flashcards

Question

What are the 4 types of qualitative research designs?

Answer 1

Descriptive (an emerging trend) Phenomenology (Traditional) Ethnography (Traditional) Grounded theory (Traditional)

Answer 2

Qualitative Rely on pure description rather than theory The goal is to provide comprehensive summary of events, situation or experience It is a method of choice when a straight description is required The use of this approach means that the researcher is more likely to move away from methodological, theoretical and discipline specific language in order to remain close to the data. Data is usually collected from a small sample and analysed thematically The researcher adopts general qualitative principles and are not governed by complex methodological, theoretical or philosophical positions that require more detailing and exploration.

Answer 3

[Looking at experience] - Uncovers thoughts, perspectives, feelings and behaviours from the perspective of the person. - Does not offer causal explanations or theories. - It provides an account of the experience of ‘being in the world’ of everyday life, of living in and through the world. - No single unified philosophical standpoint. - Reject scientific realism as the only way of describing the social world - Consider people tied to their worlds and are only understandable in their contexts - some background of beliefs and practices (culture, language, gender, education…) which is never completely capable of articulation

Answer 4

[Culture] Origins in anthropology Provides a means for exploring cultural groups Culture: The beliefs, behaviours, norms, attitudes, social arrangements and forms of expression that form describable patterns in the lives of members of a community or institutions Facilitated by explaining one culture in terms of another- Recognition of subcultures in societies The insider view - the emic perspective is what the researcher attempts to describe Difficult for insiders to describe Always conducted in the natural setting - in the field Usually over an extended period of time Direct study of the lives of the cultural groups Seeks key informants – have the ability to reflect on and describe the culture

Answer 5

[Used to generate theories] A qualitative research method that uses a systematic set of procedures to develop an inductively derived grounded theory about a phenomenon. Origins in sociology Philosophical underpinnings in pragmatism The aim is to construct a theory to explain these processes that is grounded in the data Data sources include in depth interviews and field notes

Answer 6

Transcendental phenomenology (descriptive, knowledge based, Husserlian, lebenswelt/lived exp) Existential phenomenology (lived experience, Satre) Hermeneutic phenomenology (interpretive, concerned with being, Heieggerian, dasein/existence)

Answer 7

Human behaviour occurs in the context of relationships to things, people, events and situations Reality is comprehended through the embodied experience or the lived experience Experiences provide evidence of the world – not as it is thought to be but as how it is lived Experiences include perception (hearing, seeing), believing, remembering deciding, feeling, judging, evaluating Imagination, dreams and other spiritual experiences are valid experiences Language is the central medium for transmitting meaning However, naming meaning requires interpretation Experience precedes language

Answer 8

Cultural beliefs and behaviours are: - Embedded within cultural groups - Learned and transmitted in the group Culture is dynamic, changing and adapting to new circumstances Best explored by researchers who are not part of the cultural group

Answer 9

TRADITIONAL - in a culture unfamiliar to the researcher - focus on a single setting - over an extended period of time FOCUSED (aka micro ethnography) The topic is specific and may be identified prior to the research Often conducted with sub cultural groups Institutions Groups with like characteristics AUTO ETHNOGRAPHY Originally referred to as the cultural study of one’s own people Combines ethnography and autobiography

Answer 10

Requires high quality data from the actual settings Continual interplay between data analysis and data collection – constant comparison Purposeful/purposive sampling Theoretical sampling : researchers seek additional data based on concepts developed from initial data analysis

Answer 11

1.Humans act towards things on the basis of meanings individuals have for them. 2.Meaning is created through interaction between people. 3.Meanings are modified through an interpretive process

Answer 12

Validity determines whether the research/test truly measures that which it was intended/claims to measure A researcher who asks, "Does my study measure what it says it measures?" is looking to make her study valid. Validity has to do with the strength of conclusions made about research.

Answer 13

Positivism

Answer 14

Interpretivism

Answer 15

Construct validity Statistical Conclusion validity Face Validity Content validity

Answer 16

Construct validity: Does the test measure the concept that it's intended to measure? A construct represents a collection of behaviours that are associated in a meaningful way to create an image or an idea invented for a research purpose. A test has construct validity if it demonstrates an association between the test scores and the prediction of a theoretical trait. Intelligence tests are one example of measurement instruments that should have construct validity. i.e. Depression is a construct that represents a personality trait which manifests itself in behaviours such as over sleeping, loss of appetite, difficulty concentrating, etc. The existence of a construct is manifest by observing the collection of related indicators.

Answer 17

A determination of whether a relationship or co-variation exists between cause and effect variables. Requires ensuring adequate sampling procedures, appropriate statistical tests, and reliable measurement procedures. This is the degree to which a conclusion is credible or believable.

Answer 18

This is the least scientific method of validity as it is not quantified using statistical methods. It is concerned with “whether it seems like we measure what we claim”. In research its never sufficient to rely on face judgments alone and more quantifiable methods of validity are necessary in order to draw acceptable conclusions.

Answer 19

This is also a subjective measure but unlike face validity we ask whether the content of a measure covers the full domain of the content. Where it distinguishes itself is through its use of experts in the field or individuals belonging to a target population. This study can be made more objective through the use of rigorous statistical tests.

Answer 20

All threats to validity are types of systematic error, not random error.

Answer 21

History → Specific events that happen during the course of a study can affect the variable being measured. Maturation → Changes that happen within a person due to time passing can affect the variable being measured. Regression toward the Mean/Statistical regression → The tendency for people who receive high or low scores on a particular measure to score closer to the mean on subsequent testing Testing Effect → People tend to do better on a test the second time they take it. Experimental Mortality → When different amounts of people or different types of people drop out of the two conditions of your experiment Participant Reaction Biases → Participants try to behave in ways that are consistent with -- or the opposite of -- the researcher’s hypothesis. Experimenter Bias/influence → Experimenters’ expectancies can affect either what they observe or how they act with participants. Confounds → Some additional variable (that you don’t care about) varies systematically along with the thing you manipulated; alternative explanation. Homogenous attrition → When a particular type of person drops out of your study, regardless of which condition they are in.

Answer 22

Reliability tells us how accurate and trustworthy a test/score is. Reliability is the consistent, reproducible estimates of what is assumed to be an underlying true score. It tells us the extent to which results are consistent over time and an accurate representation of the total population under study. If the results of a study can be reproduced under a similar methodology, then the research instrument is considered to be reliable i.e. If someone else did the same experiment/study, they would get the same result over and over again. Reliability is not measured, it is estimated.

Answer 23

1. Test-re-test method i.e. spirometry 2. Internal consistency method

Answer 24

The correlation between the scores from two different administrations of the same instrument to the same students i.e. you should get the same score on test 1a as you do on test 1b There are 3 main components to this method: a. implement your measurement instrument at two separate times for each subject b. compute the correlation between the two separate measurements c. Assume there is no change in the underlying condition (or trait you are trying to measure) between test 1 and test 2.

Answer 25

Internal consistency estimates reliability by grouping questions in a questionnaire that measure the same concept The primary difference between test-re-test and internal consistency is that test-re-test involves two administrations of the measurement instrument, whereas the internal consistency method involves only one administration of that instrument.

Answer 26

Triangulation — the use of a variety of data sources or methods to examine a specific phenomenon either simultaneously or sequentially in order to produce a more comprehensive and accurate account of the phenomenon under investigation.

Answer 27

To eliminate practice effects and other problems with the test-retest method (i.e., reactivity), test developers often give 2 highly similar forms of the test to the same people at different times. i.e. 2 correlated tests measuring the same thing

Answer 28

Split-half methods propose that many of the temporary factors influencing the test-re-test method and alternate forms method can be eliminated if test is administered only once. Two scores can be obtained simply by splitting the test into two halves. Scores on each halve are correlated with each other. A high level of correlation is taken as evidence that the items are consistently measuring the same underlying construct

Answer 29

Experimental variability→ real differences highlighted by the test/study Error variability → a) Random fluctuation: random or chance elements: fatigue, noise, mood etc: factors that are temporary and shifting b) Systematic or constant error: confounding variable Sometimes some measurement instruments require the person making the measurement to render a judgement, such as concerning an individual's functional ability in some area. When any aspect of the measurement process or scoring of an instrument involves human judgement and, hence a degree of subjectivity, a third source of measurement error must be considered c) inter-rater or inter-observer variability: the extent to which two or more individuals (coders or raters) agree

Answer 30

Length of test Restrictions in group performance Objectivity of assessment Method of estimating reliability

Answer 31

life world, the world of lived experience Associated with Husserlian / transcendental phenomenology

Answer 32

existence “consciousness” and “mind,” Associated with Hermeneutic / Heideggerian phenomenology

Answer 33

Outsider Insider E.g. Etic perspective

Answer 34

Glaser and Strauss.

5.0 Research design Flashcards

(59 cards)