1.9 Descriptive Methods Describe What Is Happening
Descriptive Methods - Purpose:
Provide a systematic and objective snapshot of what is occurring at a specific point in time.
Especially valuable in the early stages of research when researchers are trying to determine whether a particular phenomenon exists.
These methods primarily aim to answer questions like "what is happening?", "how often does it occur?", or "what are the characteristics of this phenomenon?".
Primary goal: Describe what is happening; often the first step in new research with limited data.
Helps determine whether a phenomenon exists; informs future predictive, explanatory, or control research.
They are foundational for generating hypotheses that can later be tested with correlational or experimental designs.
Case Studies
Definition: intensive examination of just one person (or organization) or a few atypical people (or organizations).
Value: can yield a lot of data.
Example: N.A. case where brain injury affected memory formation; helped identify brain regions involved in memory (Squire, 1987; Squire et al., 1989).
Advantages: can provide a lot of data.
Disadvantages: very subjective; preexisting theories can bias observations and recordings; results from a single case cannot be generalized to other people or organizations.
Illustration: Figure 1.20 shows how an injury from a fencing foil affected memory.
Important caveat: not everyone with similar brain damage experiences the same memory problems; generalizability is limited.
Observational Studies
Definition: involve systematically assessing and coding observable behavior across specific time intervals; coding assigns observed behavior to predefined categories.
Descriptive research method involving observing and classifying behavior.
Examples:
Infants' emotional responses to caretakers after strangers entered the room (Ainsworth et al., 1978).
Jane Goodall’s chimpanzee observations. (Figure 1.21 - Right)
Types of Intervention:
With intervention: when researchers directly participate in an observed session but do not control the situation to elicit certain responses. Observer may influence behavior through active involvement (e.g., a researcher joining a social group to study its dynamics, known as participant observation, but not manipulating events). (Figure 1.21 - Left: infants’ emotional reactions to caretaker after stranger).
Without intervention: observer records behavior without interfering (passive).
Advantages:
Provides structured, observable data.
Can capture natural behavior.
Capturing behavior in natural settings enhances ecological validity, meaning the findings are more likely to apply to real-world situations.
Especially valuable in early stages to determine existence of a phenomenon.
Flexible: can occur with or without observer intervention.
Disadvantages:
Potential observer bias: errors due to the observer’s expectations.
Inter-rater reliability: A measure of agreement among independent observers; low reliability indicates inconsistent coding and can undermine the study's validity.
Coding can be influenced by cultural norms (e.g., gender differences in expressing sadness).
Examples: observers may code women’s expressions as sadness and men’s as annoyance due to expectations.
Reactivity: The presence of the observer can alter the behavior being observed.
Hawthorne effect: classic example of reactivity (noted as described in related feature).
Participants might exhibit the Hawthorne effect, where performance or behavior changes simply because they know they are being observed, rather than due to any specific intervention.
May not reveal internal states.
Limited causal inferences.
Artificial behavior: participants may act differently because they know they are being observed.
Research Goals and Limitations:
Researchers cannot control the behavior; they simply describe it.
Useful for recording what is happening; often a first step when little data exist.
Sets the stage for future research to predict, explain, or influence the phenomenon.
Self-Reports (Descriptive Research)
Purpose: When researchers need information directly from many participants, self-reports are used.
Not appropriate for case studies or purely observational studies.
Definition: A descriptive method involving asking research participants questions and collecting their responses. Participants may answer freely or choose from fixed options.
Common tools: questionnaires and surveys.
Modes of Self-Report:
Surveys/Questionnaires: participants respond to structured items revealing mental activity or behavior (e.g., sexual behavior).
Interviews: researchers ask questions directly to obtain detailed views, experiences, and attitudes.
Kinsey approach: used questionnaires and interviews to study sexual behavior in the U.S. (Kinsey et al., 1948; Kinsey et al., 1953). Findings supported that sexual attraction exists along a continuum.
Advantages:
Easy to administer.
Cost-efficient.
Relatively fast data collection.
Suitable for large samples.
Uniquely capable of gathering data on individuals' internal states, such as thoughts, feelings, attitudes, beliefs, and intentions, which are not directly observable.
Disadvantages and Biases:
Self-report bias: respondents may tailor answers to appear favorable or socially acceptable.
Response set biases, where respondents answer questions in a consistent way that is unrelated to the question's content (e.g., always choosing the middle option or consistently agreeing regardless of the statement).
Recall inaccuracies: memory errors can distort reports.
Memories can be prone to reconstruction and decay, leading to inaccurate reporting of past events or behaviors.
Social desirability and confidentiality concerns can affect truthfulness.
Ethical Considerations and Confidentiality:
Researchers should ensure confidentiality so responses are not linked to names or identities.
Designing questions to minimize discomfort helps elicit more truthful responses.
Observational vs Self-Report:
Observational studies may not answer questions about internal states, beliefs, or private behaviors.
For topics like study-method preferences among many students, questionnaires or interviews are more informative than observation (cannot reliably infer internal choices from observed behavior).
Case: Studying Student Study Methods (Miyatsu et al., 2018)
Observational approach would likely miss how students perceive or choose methods.
Findings: 78\% of students say rereading information in the textbook is among their most popular study methods. (Miyatsu et al., 2018)
Caution: popularity of a technique does not guarantee it is the most effective.
Considerations: for participants who cannot write, alternative methods are used to obtain responses.
Key Takeaways
Self-reports provide direct insight into opinions, experiences, and behaviors but are prone to biases and recall issues.
Choose data collection method (survey/questionnaire vs interview vs observation) based on the research question and what you need to know (especially internal states or subjective beliefs).
Ethical design (confidentiality, minimizing discomfort) is essential to improve honesty and data quality.