PSYC 2001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Ethology, Participant Observation, Statistical Hypothesis Testing

• School: Carleton University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 2001
• Professor: Angel Mackenzie

Document Summary

Focuses on specific behaviours that can be easily quantified. Assign numerical values to responses and measure. For example: count number of times a person touches their face in a two minute period. Observational measures: focuses on behaviour in natural settings; individuals talking about themselves. Describe or capture themes that emerge from the data: interpretation by researcher. Data are non-numerical and expressed in language. One approach is not superior to the other; they are complementary. Qualitative methods are more (cid:498)open-ended(cid:499); they are useful when the researcher may not have an obvious plan for describing the behaviour in which they are interested in. Quantitative methods could be applied once a more definitive idea of the behaviour is developed. Qualitative: diary accounts by the participants and open ended descriptions by the observers; quantitative: Eeg, rating scale and questionnaires, and observer ratings (coding) employee comments and supervisor comments; quantitative: rating scales. For example: efficacy of new employee training program.