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driven by a scientist's curiosity or interest in a scientific question. The main motivation is to expand man's knowledge. There is no obvious commercial value to the discoveries that result from research.
ie. What is a personality disorder? |
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is designed to solve problems.
i.e. What is the most effective treatment for a personality disorder? |
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involves generalizing to concept You might think of this validity as a "labeling" issue.
When you measure what you term "self esteem" is that what you were really measuring?
threat: investigator uses inadequate definitions and measures of variables. |
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occurs when the experiment provides adequate coverage of the subject being studied.
This includes measuring the right things as well as having an adequate sample. Samples should be both large enough and be taken for appropriate target groups.
The perfect question gives a complete measure of all aspects of what is being investigated.
validity is related very closely to good experimental design. A high validity question covers more of what is sought. |
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occurs when it can be concluded that there is a causal relationship between the variables being studied.
A danger is that changes might be caused by other factors.
It is related to the design of the experiment, such as in the use of random assignment of treatments.
threats: experimental procedures treatments or experiences of the participants that threaten to draw correct inferences from the data about the population in an experiment. |
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the degree to which the summary we reach about relationships in our data are reasonable.
ie.For instance, a study that looks at the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and attitudes about capital punishment. Based on our data, we may conclude that there is a positive relationship, that persons with higher SES tend to have a more positive view of capital punishment while those with lower SES tend to be more opposed. is it credible or believable? |
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occurs when the causal relationship discovered can be generalized to other people, times and contexts.
Correct sampling will allow generalization and hence give validity. |
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| criterion related validity |
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| A valid measure actually measures what it says it will measure |
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causal relationship discovered can be generalized to other people, times and contexts.
e.g. a political poll intends to measure future voting intent.
College entry tests should have a high validity of this type with regard to final exam results. |
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something appears to be valid.
validity pertains to whether the test "looks valid" |
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• Inappropriate selection of constructs or measures.
• Insufficient data collected to make valid conclusions.
• Measurement done in too few contexts.
• Measurement done with too few measurement variables.
• Too great a variation in data (can't see the wood for the trees).
• Inadequate selection of target subjects.
• Complex interaction across constructs.
• Subjects giving biased answers or trying to guess what they should say.
• Experimental method not valid.
• Operation of experiment not rigorous. |
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| experimental designs that control for validity |
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Definition
| control selection of subjects, assignments to groups, and assignments of treatments: |
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| pre test/ post test control group design |
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Definition
Randomly assigns subjects to the experimental or control group
tests each group on the dependent variable
Applies treatment to the experimental group only, not the control group
tests both the experimental and control group on the dependent variable |
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| Post-test only control group design (No Pretest) |
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Randomly assigns subjects to the experimental or control group
-Applies treatment to the experimental group only, not the control group
tests both the experimental and control group on the dependent variable |
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| solomon four group design |
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Definition
There are four randomly assigned groups in this design: one experimental group (which receives treatment) and three control groups (one of which receives treatment as well
-Pretest given to only two groups
-Post-test given to all groups
Experimental designs that control for threats to validity w/o control groups
1) One group post-test design, X O1 (weak)
2) One group post-test only design w/ multi. post- test
[X O1A O1B……O1N]
3) One group pretest-posttest design, O1 X O2
4) One group pretest-posttest design using double pretest, O1 O2 X O3
5) One group pretest-posttest design a non-equivalent dependent variable,[O1A1 O1B] X [O2A1 O2B]
6) Removed treatment design, O1 X O2 O3 (X removed) O4
7) Repeated treatment design, O1 X O2 (X removed) O3 X O4 |
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| in qualitative research tests the impact of a treatment on an outcome in a study, controlling for all other factors that might influence that outcome. |
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| quasi experimental design |
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| an experiment in which participants are not randomly assigned to groups |
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repeated measures
within participants |
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Definition
when the same people are used, participants get same pre & post test.
Is used with longitudinal studies, and educational tests. |
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indendent measures
between participants design |
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an experiment having multiple conditions and different people in each condition.
If two groups in an experiment consist of different individuals then this is an independent measures design.
The main advantage of an independent measures design is that there is no problem with order effects.
However, the design also has disadvantages. The most serious is the potential for error resulting from individual differences between the groups of participants taking part in the different conditions.
This design uses several waves of observation before and after the introduction of the independent (treatment) variable
It helps to avoid carryover effect, participant’s can either be part of the treatment group or part of the control group, but NOT both |
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| Interrupted time series (most powerful design) |
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Definition
make time sequenced observations, adds treatment, and make more time sequenced observations.This type of design works best if the treatment (independent variable) is expected to have an immediate, marked effect, and if the treatment is introduced (implemented) all at once in all relevant situations.
Results should show interruptions or change after treatment is introduced.
effected by “history and instrumentation effects”. |
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a study investigating a particular group with a certain trait, and observes it over a period of time, drawing conclusions from one group.
eg.23,000 women who were using oral contraceptives and a similar number of women who were not using oral contraceptives. The researchers followed both groups of women for 25 years and noted how many died. |
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solomons 4 square
randomized |
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Definition
is a standard pretest-posttest 2 group design and the posttest only design. The various combinations of tested and untested groups with treatment and control groups, allows the researcher to ensure that confounding variables are extraneous factors have not influenced the results.
Eliminates practice and hawthorn’s effect test effect is a true experiment with random manipulation, looks @ cause and effect.
O X O
O O
X O
O
Pretest/posttest design- one group tested before and after treatment |
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| a test to impact the impact of a treatment on an outcome controlling for all other factors |
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consists of two or more factors, each with discrete possible values or "levels", and whose experimental units take on all possible combinations of these levels across all such factors.
A full design may also be called a fully crossed design. Such an experiment allows studying the effect of each factor on the response variable, as well as the effects of interactions between factors on the response variable.
For the vast majority of these experiments, each factor has only two levels. For example, with two factors each taking two levels, a experiment would have four treatment combinations in total, and is usually called a 2×2 design.
eg.vary the amount of time the children receive instruction with one group getting 1 hour of instruction per week and another getting 4 hours per week. And, we'd like to vary the setting .In this example we have two issues:: time in instruction and setting.
time in instruction has two levels and setting has two levels. |
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survey research design
longitudinal design |
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Definition
studies in which the same measures are collected multiple times for each subject but under different conditions. For instance, data are collected in study in which change over time is assessed. Other studies compare the same measure under two or more different conditions. For instance, to test the effects of caffeine on cognitive function, a subject's math ability might be tested once after they consume caffeine and another time when they consume a placebo.
the same respondents are surveyed over time in order to examine changes in individual respondents.
Because of the correlational nature of survey data, it is difficult to identify the causes of individuals’ changes over time.
As people drop out of the study over time (attrition), the final sample may no longer be comparable to the original sample or represent the population. |
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survey design
cross sectional |
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Definition
orm a class of research methods that involve observation of all of a population, or a representative subset, at a defined time.
they aim to provide data on the entire population under study
They may be used to describe some feature of the population, such as prevalence of an illness, or they may support inferences of cause and effect. Longitudinal studies differ from both in making a series of observations more than once on members of the study population over a period of time.
In the design, one or more samples are drawn from the population(s) at one time.
allow researchers to describe the characteristics of a population or the differences between two or more populations, and correlational findings from designs allow researchers to make predictions. |
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successive independent sample
survey design |
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Definition
can be used to access changes in attitude over time
must make sure samples are comparable so changes are due to time not population
In the design, different samples of respondents from the population complete the survey over a time period.
allows researchers to study changes in a population over time.
design does not allow researchers to infer how individual respondents have changed over time.
A problem with the design occurs when the samples drawn from the population are not comparable—that is, not equally representative of the population. |
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representative of the target population.
each individual in a population has an equal probability of being a participant
each individual has a equal probability of being selected |
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means specific characteristics of individuals
eg. both males and females are represented in sample. the sample represents true proportion in the population |
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Using this procedure each element in the population has a known and equal probability of selection. This makes systematic sampling functionally similar to simple random sampling.
It is however, much more efficient (if variance within systematic sample is more than variance of population).
The researcher must ensure that the chosen sampling interval does not hide a pattern. Any pattern would threaten randomness. A random starting point must also be selected.
Example: Suppose a supermarket wants to study buying habits of their customers, then using they can choose every 10th or 15th customer entering the supermarket and conduct the study on this sample.
This is random sampling with a system |
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new variables taking one variable and multiplying in by another to determine impact of both
e.g. age X attitudes toward quality of life |
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| stand between IV and DV. mediate effects of IV on DV. e.g. students do well on test. due to studying effort and organization of study ideas. organization of study effort stands between IV(study) and DV(score) |
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| general test for mediation |
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| examine the relation between the predictor and the criterion variables, the relation between the predictor and the mediator variables, and the relation between the mediator and criterion variables. All of these correlations should be significant. The relation between predictor and criterion should be reduced (to zero in the case of total mediation) after controlling the relation between the mediator and criterion variables. |
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| one that influences the strength of a relationship between two other variables, and a mediator variable is one that explains the relationship between the two other variables. As an example, let's consider the relation between social class (SES) and frequency of breast self-exams (BSE). Age might be a moderator variable, in that the relation between SES and BSE could be stronger for older women and less strong or nonexistent for younger women. Education might be a mediator variable in that it explains why there is a relation between SES and BSE. When you remove the effect of education, the relation between SES and BSE disappears. |
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| Threats to external validity |
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Definition
arise when interaction of selection and treatment
(participant narrow characteristics mess up validity)
interaction of setting and treatment
(exp setting effects generalization)
airs when experimenters draw incorrect inferences from the sample data to others
eg. inferences from data are generalized to eskimos and are incorrect
interaction of history and treament
(timebound experiment effects generalization) |
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| Threats to Internal Validity |
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Definition
are experimental procedures, treatments or experiences of participants that threaten the correct conclusions
threats; history (9/11), maturation of participants, regression (overtime score regress toward mean) selection (ie. brighter participants). mortality, and diffusion of treatment (control and exp group communicate... keep them seperate. compensation/ demoralization, testing(familiiarity with test. intrumentation (different tests for pre and post) |
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uses words to describe research
exploring and understanding and meaning of social or human problems |
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is number based research
objective looks for relationships between variables |
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a combination of quantitative and qualitative research
philosophical exploration with numbers to support assumptions |
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