Research Methods (Unit 1) Flashcards Preview

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Flashcards in Research Methods (Unit 1) Deck (36)
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1
Q

What is correlation?

A

Statistical technique - measures strength of relationship between variables.

2
Q

What is an interview?

A

Used to gain in-depth information and individual views.

3
Q

What is a naturalistic observation?

A

Watching behaviour, as it occurs spontaneously, in a natural setting

4
Q

What is a questionnaire survey?

A

A snapshot of large number of people’s attitudes, opinions or behaviour

5
Q

What is an aim?

A

The aim of an investigation is its general purpose

6
Q

What is a hypothesis?

A

The hypothesis is a precise, testable statement or prediction about the expected outcome of an investigation.

7
Q

What is a null hypothesis?

A

A ‘null hypothesis’ (Ho) prediction is one that states results are due to chance and are not significant in terms of supporting the idea being investigated.

8
Q

What is a directional hypothesis? (one tailed)

A

A directional hypothesis is more specific, in that the experimenter predicts, not only that a specific relationship will exist, but, further, the direction of that relationship

9
Q

What is a non-directional hypothesis? (two tailed)

A

A two-tailed non-directional hypothesis predicts that the independent variable will have an effect on the dependent variable, but the direction of the effect is not specified

10
Q

What is a pilot study?

A

A pilot study is a test run on a few participants this enables you to check for design faults before carrying out an investigation on a larger scale, this is a routine procedure especially used when carrying out questionnaire.

11
Q

What is random sampling?

A

Everyone in the entire target population has an equal chance of being selected.

12
Q

What is opportunity sampling?

A

Uses people from target population available at the time

13
Q

What is stratified sampling?

A

Divides target population into groups, people in sample from each group in same proportions as population. So you would have a higher number of people between the ages of 20-30 than 70-80

14
Q

What are demand characteristics?

A

Participants might read things into the situation and start changing their behaviour they respond to the perceived demands of the study

15
Q

What is a single blind design?

A

Participants do not know which condition (experimental or control) they are in. For example, the use of placebos in trials of drug treatments.

16
Q

What is a double blind design?

A

Neither the participants nor the experimenter know which condition people are being treated to. For example, a research assistant giving out drugs and measuring their effects does not know who has the placebo and who has the drug.

17
Q

What is an independent variable (IV)?

A

Variable the experimenter manipulates - assumed to have a direct effect on the dependent variable.

18
Q

What is a dependent variable (DV)?

A

Variable the experimenter measures, after making changes to the IV which are assumed to affect the DV.

19
Q

What is an extraneous variables (Ex Vs)?

A

Other variables, apart from the IV, that might affect the DV. They might be important enough to provide alternative explanations for the effects, for example, confounding variables.

20
Q

What is a laboratory experiment?

A

Artificial environment with tight controls over variables.

21
Q

What is a field experiment?

A

Natural environment with independent variable manipulated by researchers.

22
Q

What is a natural experiment?

A

Natural changes in independent variable are used - it is not manipulated.

23
Q

What is an independent group?

A

Testing separate groups of people, each group is tested in a different condition

24
Q

What are repeated measures?

A

Testing the same group of people in different conditions, the same people are used repeatedly

25
Q

What are matched pairs?

A

Testing separate groups of people - each member of one group is same age, sex, or social background as a member of the other group

26
Q

What is counterbalancing?

A

Alternating the order in which participants perform in different conditions of an experiment. For example, group 1 does ‘A’ then ‘B’, group 2 does ‘B’ then ‘A’ this is to eliminate order effects.

27
Q

What are closed questions?

A

(fixed choice of answers), to generate data for easy analysis

28
Q

What are open questions?

A

(space to write any answer) for more detailed individual answers

29
Q

What are unstructured interviews?

A

apparently informal chats, or they can be formal

30
Q

What are structured interviews?

A

pre-determined questions. For example, clinical tests used in psychiatry

31
Q

What is quantitative research?

A

Gathers data in numerical form and is concerned with making ‘scientific’ measurements. Quantitative data analysis uses a barrage of inferential statistical tests

32
Q

What is qualitative research?

A

Gathers information that is not in numerical form. For example, diary accounts, open-ended questionnaires, unstructured interviews and unstructured observations

33
Q

What is a median?

A

All values are arranged in order, the middle value is the median. Used with interval or ordinal level data, the median is not affected much by extreme values

34
Q

What is mode?

A

The most frequent value or score in a set of data. Used with nominal data. Does not give any information about other values

35
Q

What is range?

A

Simple measure of dispersion- shows the total spread of data. Difference between highest and lowest scores in a set of data: top value minus bottom value plus 1. Affected by atypical, extreme values

36
Q

What is Standard Deviation?

A

Measure of dispersion- shows degree of clustering of values around the mean. Calculating standard deviation (S): Square root of sum of all squared deviations from the mean, divided by N (or sometimes N-1).