Qualitative Methods
What are Quantitative Methods?
They are research methods that rely on numbers!
What are Psychosocial effects?
A psychological property of the experimenter changes participant behavior. Ex. Mood or personality
What is observational research?
Research which involves primarily observing participants. Remember this can be qualitative or quantitative
What are the two types of questions within surveys?
1. Opened-ended questions: respondents can answer whatever they like (short/long answer)
2. Close ended questions: respondents cannot answer whatever they like (multiple choice, true/false etc)
What is an independent variable?
The variable which a researcher changes or controls in an experiment
What are the types of Qualitative Data?
Text, Audio, Images and Videos
What is the college sophomore problem?
Researchers tendency to use university students as participants
What is archival research?
Its when you gather data from old records. Ex. historical archives, files from past researchers and publicly available datasets.
What are the 3 issues within questions?
1. Double-barrelled questions: asking about 2 things at once
2. Loaded questions: pressuring respondents to answer a certain way
3. Negative wording: using ‘not’ or other negations
What is External Validity?
the extent to which the results of a scientific study can be applied to other people.
(same as generalizability)
How do we capture variability?
For Quantitative approaches often focus on capturing the majority and for qualitative approaches allow us to capture the full complexity
What is probability sampling?
Having access to the whole population (or whole groups of it) Ex. Census
What is concealed observations? What are some issues within it?
Its when participants are not aware of the observer! It also raises ethical questions over participants are not consenting.
What is a rating scale? What are the different types of them?
A rating scale is often when you ask participants about degrees of judgement. Other types of scales include semantic differential scales, non-verbal scales and forced choice.
What is a meta analysis?
The use of statistical techniques to combine studies from many studies in an area
Why isn’t there a lot of Indigenous research in psychology?
Main stream psychology often is very quantitative while Indigenous research is usually qualitative
What is purposive sampling? When do you use it?
Purposive sampling is targeting only people who fit a certain criterion or set of criteria, and recruiting them for study. Only used in specific population but don't have access to everyone in it.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of systematic observations?
Some advantages include researchers are able to control the setting and can use coding schemes to organize data. Disadvantages are the possibility of research bias.
What is response bias?
Its when a tendency to respond in a certain way
What is population? How is it different to sampling?
Population is all of a larger group while a sample is a specific part of that population.
What are the benefits of qualitative research compared to quantitative research?
Qualitative research allows for in-depth verbal understanding of human behavior.
Name the 6 different sampling techniques. What are their defining features?
Simple Random Sampling: specific number of people at random and ask them to do the study.
Stratified Random Sampling: group people and then sample randomly within the groups
Cluster Sampling: Identify clusters of people and sample from them
Convenience Sampling: Recruit participants whenever and wherever you can.
Purposive Sampling: Targeting only people who fit a certain criterion or set of criteria, and recruiting them for study
Snowball Sampling: Ask participants to recommend others to participate
What is the difference between the 3 types of observational designs we discussed? (participant, concealed, systematic)
The 3 types of observational designs are participant, concealed, systematic.
The differences between all are that participant observations are when the observer joins the group they are trying to study to gain a perceptive, while concealed observations are done without the participants knowing. Then systematic is semi-structured.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of open-ended and closed-ended questions?
For open-ended questions a pro is the freedom of the participant being able to express themselves. Con is that its difficult to code.
For close-ended a pro is that its easier to compare results. Con is the restriction of participants responses.
What are the different categories of careers in psych?
Helping, researching, applying, teaching/communicating and other.