Quantitative research designs
Testing whether a relationship exists between variables and, if so, the strength of that relationship.
What is associational or correlational research?
The study of group behaviour and the cultural patterns underlying that behaviour, using categories relevant to that particular group.
What is ethnography?
A test of the strength of the relationship between two variables.
What is correlation?
Selecting participants who happen to be available.
What is convenience sampling?
From a qualitative perspective, whether researchers' interpretations of participants' constructions of reality are accurate.
What is credibility?
Determining whether two different treatments (independent variables) have any effect on two groups of randomly assigned participants.
What is a comparison group design?
Investigating a phenomenon that is bounded by time, space and participants. That is, exploring individuals, groups, organizations or events within a specific context.
What is case study?
A parametric test to compare data from the same group of people at two different points in time.
What is a dependent- or paired-samples t-test?
The use of multiple data collection methods or multiple sources of data in qualitative research.
What is triangulation?
From a quantitative perspective, the extent to which research findings can be replicated if the study is repeated.
What is reliability?
Measuring effects of treatment while ensuring that participant groups are comparable before the treatment.
What is a pre-test/post-test design?
The use of stories as data - more specifically, first-person accounts of experience told in story form having a beginning, middle, and end.
What is narrative analysis?
Coding for grouping open codes that relies on interpretation and reflection on meaning.
What is analytical or axial coding?
Different ordering of test items or tasks for different participants.
What is counterbalancing?
From a quantitative perspective, the extent to which the findings of the study are relevant not only to the research population, but also to the wider population.
All tasks or treatments are given to all participants in different orders.
What is a repeated measures design?
The investigator as the primary instrument of data collection and analysis assumes an inductive stance that results in a theory that emerges from the data.
What is grounded theory?
A procedure that checks for group differences when you have more than one independent variable.
What is a factorial ANOVA?
A measure of how important the differences between groups are, or how strong the relationship between variables is that is not affected by sample size.
What is effect size?
From a qualitative perspective, whether findings of a particular study are applicable to other contexts.
What is transferability?
Repeated observations, both pre- and post-treatment, over a set period of time.
What is a time-series design?
The study of individuals' shared experience of a phenomenon and how such experience is transformed into consciousness.
What is phenomenology?
Categories that are responsive to the patterns or themes that arise from the collected data.
What are emergent categories?
Authentication of the findings by others based on an account of how data were collected, how categories were derived, and how decisions were made throughout the inquiry.
What is an audit trail?
From a quantitative perspective, how well experimental conditions reflect the conditions and factors in the real world.
What is ecological validity?