APSY2216 Lecture 2: Jan 20_Research Methods and Analyses_Thomson

• School: Boston College
• Department: Counseling, Developmental, and Educational Psychology
• Course: APSY2216
• Professor: Thomson

Document Summary

We use senses, experts, general agreement, and logic to develop ideas or hypotheses about the way the world works. Steps are not always linear - you sometimes have to revise previous steps. Basic research - aimed to improve/refine theory. Quantitative - hard statistics and numbers, one way of seeing, objective, data analysis, effectiveness of some practice. Research methodologies larger scale, more generalizable, associations between variables, confirming or disconfirming hypothesis exploratory, research design is flexible and emerging multiple perspectives, more subjective, highlight trends and thematic analysis, smaller scale, Descriptive - attempts to describe a given state of affairs as carefully and fully as possible. Ethnographic (qualitative) - describe individuals" experiences within their daily lives, Associational - looks at association between different variables or factors, looks at relationships. Survey (quantitative) - identifying average group characteristics by surveys or interviews that are already existing in the world, demonstrates relationships but not causation communities, and culture through interview and observation.