Quantitative Research Methods

Question 1

Outline Middlemist et al

Answer 1

Aim: To investigate how the presence of others effected the time it took men to urinate in a public toilet.
- 1) Toilet with 3 stalls.
2) 1 participant stood either next to the participant, one urinal away, or was not present.
3) Another researcher hid the next urinal to measure the time it took the participant to begin urinating.
- Results: Average onset of urination was much higher with the researcher in 1 urinal away, and higher when he was right next to p.

Question 2

Festinger et al (participant observation)

Answer 2

• AIM; How the people in. a cult would cope with the situation when they found out that the world wouldnt end a specific time.
• 1) R read a newspaper article abt a cult that thought the world was gonna end.
• 2) Joined the cult and pretended they converted.
  3)Theory of cognitive dissonance said they would would either chnage their beliefs or change their behavior.
  -4) When the data arrived, some changed their beliefs and some left.

Question 3

Evaluate participant observation:

Answer 3

• provides in-depth knowledge of a topic
• avoids researcher bias because researchers seek to understand instead of imposing their own reality.
• Provides holistic interpretation, many things taken into account.
• Difficult to record data.
• time-consuming and demanding.

Question 4

Naturalistic observations

Answer 4

• High ecological validity
• can be used to collect data where it be unethical to do so.
• PPl may react to observation.
• Data from a single researcher can be an issue.
• Searching ppl without their knowledge.

Question 5

Outline the hockey study

Answer 5

• AIM: Studying aggressive behavior.
• 1) 79 hockkey players, asked for consent beg

Question 6

Unstructured Interviews

Answer 6

An interview schedule is used on the participants can gain more insights into answers that lead to an interesting understanding of the characteristics of the participants

Question 7

Evaluating unstructured interviews

Answer 7

Strengths:
- not restricted to a list
- enables researchers to make interventions.
- using thematic analysis
Limitations:
- questions are not set, the way that they are asked is subject to the skill and biases of the researcher.
- one-to-one lacks eco validity
- time-consuming analysis

Question 8

Evaluate focus groups

Answer 8

good
- convenient to gather data for more ppl
- natural setting, higher ecological. validity
- members prompt answers from other members
bas
- not appropoiate iwth all due to sensituve matters
- conformity
- harder to facilitate and anayze data

Question 9

Before interview considerations

Answer 9

• identify the sampling method
• train interviewers to avoid interviewer effects.
• ensure non-verbal cues don’t intimidate researchers.

Question 10

during considerations

Answer 10

• use descriptive questions to elicit deep responses.
• data recording, method
• determine transcription method

Question 11

Inductive content analysis

Answer 11

1) rereading transcripts for a detailed account
2) emergent themes that characterize each section.
3) categorize high-order themes and create a hierarchy.
4) based on higher-order themes, data is interpreted.

Question 12

Grigoriou study

Answer 12

• examined close friendships between gay men and straight women.
  1)8 pairs of friends from Britain.
  2) Asked to reflect abt the perception of others in their social network on their friendship, then abt their previous partners perception, then compare between this and normal friendships.
  3) Carried out thematic analysis:
• results:
• For personality and not sexuality.
• Trust
• Social support
• perception of others

Question 13

Case study

Answer 13

an in-depth investigation of a human experience

Question 14

Intrinsic Case study

Answer 14

represent only themselves, focused on understanding a specific case.

Question 15

instrumental case study

Answer 15

represent more general phenomena

Question 16

A case study is not a research method, but a research strategy.

Answer 16

ok

Question 17

Evaluating Case studies

Answer 17

good
- provide rich data
- uses triangulation which increases the credibility of findings.
- have high theoretical validity
bad
- cannot be replicated and cannot be generalized to wider population
- high risk of researcher bias
- depend on ppls perceptions and memory, which is subject to change.

Question 18

Scottish smoking ban

Answer 18

• Aim: examine the changes in attitude that came with the scottish smoking ban