Quantitative Study Designs

Question 1

What are 5 questions to guide main research in quantitative study design?

Answer 1

1) are people in study assigned in groups?
2) how many measurements are being used?
3) types of measures or observations used?
4) is there an interest in generalizing the findings to other populations or settings?
5) can you conclude findings are based on manipulation or IV?

Question 2

What are types of quantitative research designs?

Answer 2

Research synthesis (meta-analysis), surveys, developmental research, case study, observational research, correlational research, epidemiology, experimental designs

Question 3

What is research synthesis (meta-analysis)?

Answer 3

Takes results and body of research and does analysis across many research studies

Question 4

What are surveys?

Answer 4

Descriptive research method, generally broad in scope
- often include questionnaires, personal interviews, normative surveys

Question 5

What are other descriptive research methods?

Answer 5

• developmental research (longitudinal, mixed-longitudinal, cross-sectional)
• case study
• observational research
• correlational research

Question 6

What is epidemiology?

Answer 6

Studies the distribution and determinants of PA and health-related states in populations

Question 7

What are 3 kinds of experimental designs?

Answer 7

Pre-experimental, quasi-experimental, true experimental
- manipulation of an IV to see the effects on DV

Question 8

What conditions are necessary to make a causal claim?

Answer 8

-“Causes” need to precede “effects” in time
- needs to be correlation between causes and effects
-relationship between causes and effects can’t be explains by confounding variables

Question 9

What is random selection?

Answer 9

Randomly selecting participants from a population

Question 10

What is random assignment?

Answer 10

Pool of participants selected, randomly assigned to groups

Question 11

What is true experimental design?

Answer 11

Random assignment is used
- control and experimental groups
- sometimes random selection
- theory driven
-IV manipulated

Question 12

What is quasi experimental design?

Answer 12

Not randomly assigned, and there is a control group
- approximate the conditions of the true experiment but do not allow for control and/or manipulation of relevant variables

Question 13

What is a pre-experimental design?

Answer 13

No random assignment, no control group
- weak cannot make causal claim
- hard to prove other variables didn’t cause the outcome

Question 14

Why might you not be able to use true experimental design?

Answer 14

• time constraints
• ethically or practically cannot randomly assign
• cost
• participants may not have time or want to do pre-test
• stage of research study