(4) 0.3 Descriptive Methods

  • Descriptive Methods

    • Describe behavior

  • Case Study

    • One person studied in depth to reveal the underlying truths about people

  • Naturalistic Observation

    • Observing behavior in their normal environment

  • Survey

    • Self-reporting behaviors or attitudes

  • Wording Effect

    • Wording can change the results of a survey

  • Likert Scales

    • A measurement to assess people’s attitudes, opinions, or perceptions

      • Strongly agree to strongly disagree

  • Structured Interviews

    • A research method in which predetermined questions are asked

  • Social Desirability Bias

    • Answering to please the researcher

  • Sampling Bias

    • Generalize from a few vivid but unpresentative samples

  • Random Sampling

    • Equal chance of each member of the *population being included → unbiased & representative