PSYC 201W Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Dependent And Independent Variables, Confounding, Statistical Hypothesis Testing
2 Sep 2015
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Chapter 2 research approaches and methods of data collection. Ways of categorizing research approaches: experimental versus descriptive research. Experimental [ causation: attempts to identify cause and effect relationships through psychological experiments. Descriptive [ causation: focuses on describing phenomena, events, or situations, quantitative versus qualitative research: Quantitative studies collect numerical data [incomplete picture of what"s going on] Qualitative studies collect non-numerical data to answer research questions [a more thorough studies] Ways of categorizing variables in quantitative research: variable [iq, colors of eyes, gpa, etc. ] Something that takes on different values or categories: constant [freezing point, etc. ] Something that cannot vary; a single value or category: categorical versus quantitative variables. Categorical variables varies by type or kind [religion, type of therapy, major, etc. ] Quantitative variables varies by degree or amount [height, weight, reaction time, etc. : independent versus dependent variables. Independent variable (iv: presumed to cause changes in another variable, variable manipulated by the researcher.
