Week 1 Refresh
Metaphysics
Concerned with questions such as what it is to be, who we are, what is knowledge, what are things, what is time and space.
Rationalism
Knowledge gained by intuition or innate knowledge followed by reasoning.
Theory
Philosophy that underpins a study.
Quantitative
Deals with data in the form of numbers and uses mathematical operations to investigate their properties.
Parsimony
The simpler the explanation the better. Theories should be refined to the most compact formulation.
Idealism
Advocates that reality is all in the mind.
Inductive reasoning
Starts from specific observations or sensory experiences and then develops a general conclusion from them.
Independent variable
The cause variable
Qualitative
Data expressed mostly in the form of words - descriptions, accounts, opinions, feelings etc - rather than on numbers.
Relativism
It maintains that the view of the world that we see around us is the creation of the mind.
Reductionism
Insists that only physical things and their interactions exist and that our mind and consciousness are wholly due to the active operation of materials.
Deductive reasoning
Begins with general statements and through logical arguement comes to a specific conclusion.
Dependent variable
The variable that is affected
Ratio data
Data on a scale with a true zero.
Grounded theory
Uses collected data in order to evolve theory, rather than to test or refine an existing one.
Epistemology
Concerned with the theory of knowledge.
Hypothesis
A prediction, an assumption or statement of fact.
Nominal data
The division of data into separate categories by naming or labelling
Ordinal data
Ordering data by rank without reference to specific measurement.
Interval data
Data that can be measured on a scale with no meaningful zero.
Empiricism
Knowledge gained purely by sensory experience.
Positivism
Based on the acceptance as fact that the world around us is real and that we can find out about these realities.
Correlation
Design used to examine a relationship between 2 concepts.
Regression
A type of statistical analysis that uses simple and multiple predictions to predict Y from X values. Usually shown as a line through the values plotted on a scatterplot.
Hermeneutics
The art of interpretation, lies in finding out the meanings behind the text.