Research Methods Module

What is a continuous variable?

Allow fractional values to be assigned when they are measured.

What are discrete variables?

Allow only whole variables to be assigned when measured.

What are the scales of measurement?

Nominal, ordinal, interval, ratio.

What are nominal measures?

Values are assigned to indicate a different category and there is no intrinsic ordering - just indicate membership to different categories.

What are ordinal measures?

Values are assigned to indicate an order but does not tell us the difference in magnitude between each.

What are interval measures?

Numbers indicate an actual amount of something, with equal units of measurement, separating two scores on a scale but with no real 0 - does not mean the absence of something, it is arbitrary like a temperature scale.

What are ratio measures?

Comprises numbers that indicate an actual amount of something with equal units of measurement, separating each score on the scale. However, unlike an interval scale, it has a real zero point.

What are the main five categories of research design?

Descriptive, correlational, experimental, quasi-experimental, non-experimental.

What is descriptive research?

Concerned with measurement and description of the natural state of individual variables as they are experienced via a certain group of people. No experimentation/manipulation, focus on observation only.

What is correlational research?

Concerned with investigation of relationships between variables, no experimentation, variables are observed as they naturally exist and an association between two variables - each participant must provide two pieces of data for each variable and how changes to one accompany changes to another.

What is experimental research?

Concerned with determining cause and effect in a relationship between variables, involve manipulation of the hypothesised independent variable in a relationship, involves carefully controlled experimental conditions to increase internal validity.

What is quasi-experiemental?

Seek to investigate cause and effect in a relationship and some attempt is made to have control for extraneous variables. However, evidence is limited for cause and effect as there is no random assignment in experimental groups.

What is non-experimental?

Concerned with demonstrating a relationship between variables but do not explain cause and effect, involves observation of two or more groups of people and one variable. Variables observed in their natural state.

What is central tendency?

What is most representative in a distribution.

What is the median?

The middle score. Use with ordinal data or when outliers are present.

What is mode?

The most frequent score. Use with discrete and nominal data.

What are measures of variability?

Range, interquartile range, standard deviation.

What is in the interquartile range?

IQR = q3 - q1.

Order data from smallest to largest.

Locate the median (average of two middle numbers. if its even, find first q1 which is the median of the lower half and q3).

What is standard deviation?

The average amount that scores differ from or deviate from the mean (subtract the mean from the raw score = deviation score).

What are deductive arguments?

valid - conclusions necessarily follows from premises.

What are inductive arguments?

strong - premises provide good support for conclusion.