research methods Flashcards
why should we care about research methods?
critical consumers of knowledge, bridge the gap between research and practice
naturalistic observations
natural environment, not all participants have the chance to display the same behavior
structured observations
laboratory situation set up to evoke behavior of interest, all participants have the chance to display behavior of interest
self reports
case studies
reliability
the results are consistent over time
validity
the results measure what we think they measure
representative sample
subset of the population that reflects characteristics of the larger group
what are correlations? How to determine direction and magnitude?
observing relationship between two variables, strong positive- both increase, strong negative- one increases as the other decreases
confounding variables
third variable thats relatiopnship to x and y may explain the association
experimental studies
golden standard to determine if one condition has an effect on another variable
developmental designs
designs that are focused on age related changes
longitudinal designs
one group of children compared across time
cross-sectional designs
children of different ages compared at one time
longitudinal-sequential designs
children of different ages are followed longitudinally
