K205 Book Notes

Chapters 1, 4, 6 and 7

Chapter 1: Two-eyed seeing

Belief that there are many ways of understanding the world, some represented by indigenous knowledge and others by European-derived sciences

Reflects the “bringing together” of knowledge by using the analogy of using two eyes

• One eye seeing the strengths of Indigenous ways of knowing

• Other eye seeing the strengths of Western ways of knowing

Other assumptions:

• Brings together — does not pit one knowledge source against the other or favor one perspective

• Premised on respect, reflection and co-learning

• Allow for diversity of perspectives

Source of data: qual, quant and mixed methods

Chapter 4: Feasibility and pilot studies

Feasibility study: used to assess whether a planned main study can be done and the practicality of the study elements

Pilot study: a type of feasibility study

• small scale and scope preliminary test of whether critical elements of a main study, usually an RCT, will be feasible

RCT:

• Control group

• Intervention group

• Random assignment

Pilot and feasibility studies are conducted to improve the chances of conducting high quality RCT

Chapter 4: Threats to internal validity

1. Diffusion of treatments:

   • Participants in experimental and control group communicate impacting the scores on the DV

     • Control with: single blinding to reduce diffusion of treatment

2. Regression: 

   • Participants with extreme scores have their scores naturally change in the direction of the mean 

     • Control with: specific inclusion criteria to limit people with extreme scores

3. Placebo Effect

   • Participants may react in a way they expect they should react in

     • Control with: single blind to control for placebo 

4. Hawthorne effect: 

   • Participants might react in favorable ways just bc they are being observed 

     • Control with: single or double binding

Chapter 6: Logical and Construct Validity 

Logical validity: 

refers to the quality of researchers’ arguments, their application of theory to support the needs for the study and the appropriate interpretation of results based on the data 

Construct validity: 

refers to whether the measures used by researchers assess/test what they intended to measure. Are we measuring the concept (construct) that we say we are measuring?

• eg: measuring child’s height on a growth chart would give you a measure of child’s height in cm 

• Reliability is an important aspect of construct validity; indicates that the measure is consistent or repeatable.

• You can have a test that is reliable but not valid, but never a test that is not valid but reliable

Application of Construct Validity: 

• Nomological network: term used to discuss construct validity

Chapter 7: Qualitative description

Used to get face value, everyday language description of what the participant said about a phenomenon or event

• Uses content analysis (face value) as opposed to thematic analysis

• Different to phenomenology which is more thematic analysis (in-depth)

Chapter 7: Observations

What one person observes in a particular context will be different from what another person observes

1. Complete participant: researcher becomes a participant

2. Participant as an observer: Researcher engages as participant AND researcher

3. Observer as participant: Researcher’s primary goal is observing, and secondary is participating. Researcher observes from a distance but participants are aware that researcher is present

4. Complete observer: researcher has no interaction with participants and not noticed by participants