Summary PSY1005S Exam Notes: Quantitive Research, Intelligence, & Community psychology

Quantitative Research
Quantitative vs. Qualitative
Quantitative
 Involves the analysis of numbers
 Draws on the logical positivist paradigm
 Focus
o Prediction
o Causation
o Cause and effect
 Can be described as more conclusive
o Because of how it looks at Cause and effect
 Sample group chosen randomly
 Researcher knows exactly what they are looking for
o Careful not to let anything interfere with the relationship they are
studying

Qualitative
 Often involves an analysis of words
o In different settings
 Discussions
 Interviews
 Unstructured
o Participant speaks and presents data in own
time and way
 Structured
o Researcher organizes the topic
o Fixed questions
 Asked to all
 Semi- structured
o No fixed questions
o Researcher guides conversation
 Predetermined topics
 Images
 Videos
 Objects
o Opinions of the participants valued
 Draws on a number of paradigms
 Focus
o In-depth understandings of behaviour
o Reasons behind people’s behaviour
o Find patterns in peoples’ behaviour
 More exploratory
o Can get evidence to further research
 Can use sample groups chosen from a particular group

, o Instead of random selection
 Researcher starts off with a general area they wish to study
o Can be surprised by the responses from participants
o May not know exactly what they are looking for when starting the
study
 Problem of the subjective nature of Qualitative research
o Difficult to interpret
o Could be interpreted in many ways
o Can also be a strength
o Researcher find a balance to solve the problem
 Need for rich subjective data
 Problems that come with interpreting it
 Researcher plays an integral part
o Decide how the data is collected
 Many ways mentioned above
o Analyse the data
 Interpreting the answers using criteria they have developed
 Interpreting subtle body language in videosmjlbiugufiuty

,The Scientific Process
 Start with a question
 Develop an hypothesis
 Define your variables
 Test the hypothesis using sound research design
 Analyse data
 Report findings
 More research and theory building
 New hypotheses derived from theory

 May then start at 4 again



Goals of Quantitative Research
Describing behaviour
 Does attractiveness change over time?
 Do students who study in front of the TV do worse than those who study
in a quiet environment?

Prediction of behaviour
 Matric points predict success at university

Identifying the causes of behaviour
 Do matric points cause university outcome?

Explaining behaviour:
 If watching violence on TV causes aggressive behaviour, how?
o Through modeling?
o Through desensitisation to violence?
o Leading to a belief that violence is the norm?


Where do scientific ideas come from?
Common sense:
 Do opposites attract?

Observations:
 You store something in a special place and then can’t find it

Past research:
 Which students drink more….

Practical problems:
 How do we solve the problem of violence?

,Theories
• A theory is a systematic body of ideas about a particular topic or
phenomenon, which has two functions:
• It organises and explains a variety of specific facts or descriptions
of behaviour
• It generates new knowledge by focusing our thinking
• Scientific theory
• Are grounded in actual data from prior research
• They generate hypotheses which can be tested/They must be
falsifiable
• Hypothesis
• Testable predictions based on the theory

5 Types of Quantitative Studies
1. Case Study
Description
• Examine one subject in detail
Main Advantage
 Provides rich descriptive detail
 Suggests hypotheses for further study
 Can study rare phenomena in depth
Main Disadvantage
o Can’t establish cause and effect
o May not be representative
o Can rely on subjective opinions
o Researcher

2. Naturalistic observation
Description
• Behaviour is observed
• Where it naturally occurs
Main Advantage
• Can provide detailed information about naturally occurring behaviours
o Nature
o Frequency
o Context
Main Disadvantage
• Can’t establish cause and effect
• Observer’s presence may affect behaviour of participants

3. Survey
Description
• Questions or tests
• Administered to a portion of a larger population
Main Advantage
• A properly drawn, representative sample
• Gives accurate information about the broader population
Main Disadvantage

, • Unrepresentative samples = misleading results
• Interviewer and social desirability bias may distort the findings

4. Correlational study
Description
 Strength of association between variables is assessed
Main Advantage
 Allows prediction
 Contextualizes experimental results into a more natural setting
 Can examine issues that cannot be studied practically or ethically in
experiments
Main Disadvantage
• Cannot give causation

5. Experiment
Description
 Variables are manipulated
 Effects on non-manipulated variables measured
Main Advantage
 Best for examining cause & effect
Main Disadvantage
o Careful design is essential
 Otherwise confounding can threaten validity

,Causation & Correlation
Correlation Coefficients
 Vary from -1 to +1
 The closer they are to zero, the weaker the correlation
o Zero therefore means no correlation at all
 The direction of the correlation (positive or negative) tells us how the
variables are associated:
o Negative
 As one goes up, the other goes down
o Positive
 As one goes up, the other goes up
 OR as one does down, the other goes down

Issues with Correlation Studies
 Prevent you from deciding what is the cause, and what is the effect
 Problem 1
o Can’t tell the direction of the association
 Problem 2
o May be third variables

Reasons for doing a correlational study
 Can identify real-world associations
o And then be studied under controlled laboratory conditions
 Can test whether relationships found in the laboratory generalise to the
real world
 Sometimes it is the only possible method
o Practical reasons
o Ethical reasons
 Allows prediction

Establishing causality
 Temporal precedence
o One variable must come before the other in time
o The experimenter manipulates a deciding which variable comes
first
 Covariation between the two variables
o When one variable changes, the other shows the effect
 Eliminate other possible or plausible explanations
o Third variables

,Experimental Design
What makes a good experiment?
 Random assignment
 Large sample size
o Helps ensure that the random assignment groups are the same in
all important ways
 An anomaly is more of a problem in a small group
o Gives you statistical power to find an effect
 No confounding variables
o Takes careful planning
o

Experimental control
 What you the experimenter manipulates must be the ONLY difference
between the experimental and control groups
 Partly achieved through random assignment
o To the experimental and control groups
 Partly achieved through carefully eliminating all confounding variables

Literature Review
1. Research of literature done before you
1. Summary if all the relevant literature/studies before
2. Important so you don’t just repeat a previous study
1. Learn from previous studies

, Types of research
Descriptive
 Exploratory type of research
 Usually broad
 Types
o Case study
 Few cases
 Lots of detail
o Naturalistic Observation
 Just watching people
o Interview

Correlative
 Association
 Relations
 Don’t directly manipulate the IV
o Rather observe

Experimental
 Look at cause and effect
 Manipulate the IV