Surveys

• 2 Methods:

  • Questionnaires and Interviews

• Types of surveys:

  • cross-sectional (once)

  • longitudinal (several times)

• Adv.:

  • cheap and fast

  • if anonymous, people may be more truthful

• Disadvantages:

  • low response rates

  • people may lie

  • unclear/biased questions

    

Observations

• Types:

  • Naturalistic or Laboratory

  • Participant and Non-participant

• Advantages:

  • assess behaviour people may not be aware of / lie about

• Disadv:

  • if observed, people may change their behaviour

  • researcher loses objectivity (if participant observation)

Experiments

• Hold some variables constant, manipulate others

• 2 groups: experimental/ control

• Advantages:

  • only research method where you can determine cause and effect (ONLY RM where you can do this)

• Disadv:

  • confounding variables muddy the waters

  • It may be impractical/ unethical

Case Study

• Study 1 person

• Follow them for years, get lots of data

• Adv:

  • get a lot of information

  • Avoids ‘hazards’ of group data

• Disadv:

  • lots of data so lots of analysis

  • results may only apply to that person, nobody else! (can’t generalize)

Content/Historical analysis

• Study documents, not people

  • mass media, archival documents

• Look at themes/patterns

• advantages:

  • techniques are nonreactive

  • easy to replicate

• Disadv.:

  • can be hard to find docs

  • may not reflect reality - not accurate/authentic

Ethnography

• study an entire group in detail, in their natural setting

• Focus on their cultural norms, beliefs, rituals, etc.

• Adv.:

  • Learn a lot

• Disadv.:

  • keeping objectivity

  • takes a long time to do

Ethical Research on Humans

• Fully inform participants

• they should give consent

• Avoid risk to the well-being of participants

• participants can drop out at any time, without explanation

• confidentiality is key, and if one can not maintain it, one must inform participants in advance

• if must deceive participants (necessary for some research), must:

  1. Debrief

  2. Offer counselling (by 3rd party)

  3. Get INFORMED consent