Non-Experimental Approaches PDF

ALTERNATIVE TO EXPERIMENTATION: NON-EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN Kim Sanchez  nonexperimental approaches ✘ Nonexperimental approaches do not create levels of an independent variable nor randomly assign subjects to these levels. ○ They are used where exp...

ALTERNATIVE TO EXPERIMENTATION: NON-EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN Kim Sanchez  nonexperimental approaches ✘ Nonexperimental approaches do not create levels of an independent variable nor randomly assign subjects to these levels. ○ They are used where experiments are not ethical or possible, or where we want to test hypotheses in realistic conditions. ○ Usually conducted in real-world setting ○ Confound – DV 2  Internal validity ✘ The degree to which a researcher can establish a causal relationship between the independent and dependent variables. ✘ An experiment has high internal validity when we can demonstrate that only the antecedent conditions are responsible for group differences in behavior. ○ An internally valid experiment allows us to draw cause-and- effect conclusions. 3  EXTERNAL VALIDITY ✘ Generalizability or applicability of experiment to people or situation outside research setting ✘ Non experimental designs high in external validity ✘ Trade off between internal and external validity. ✘ Use different tools in psychological scientist’s tool box 4  TWO DIMENSIONS OF EXPERIMENT 1. The degree of manipulation of antecedent conditions ✘ Experiments – high degree of manipulation ✘ Nonexperiments – low degree of manipulation For example Amount of caffeine a subjects will take during the experiment 5  TWO DIMENSIONS OF EXPERIMENT 2. The degree of imposition of units ✘ The extent to which researcher constraints or limits the responses a subject may contribute to the data For example Hours of listening to hip hop music Not including the name of the artist 6  NONEXPERIMENTAL APPOACHES USED BY PSYCHOLOGIST 7  PHENOMENOLOGY ✘ Description of individual’s immediate experience ✘ Involves a subject's description of personal subjective experience. ✘ Phenomenology is low in manipulation of antecedent conditions and low in imposition of units (low-low ✘ Cannot used to determine causes of behaviour ✘ Describe but don’t explain behaviour 8  Case studies ✘ Experiences, observable behaviors, and archival records kept by an outside observer. ✘ Split brain – Michael Gazzaniga ✘ Case studies have several advantages: ○ source of inferences, hypotheses, and theories ○ source of therapy techniques ○ allow study of rare phenomena ○ provide exceptions to accepted ideas, theories, and practices 9  Case studies Case Study Weaknesses ✘ representativeness of sample ✘ completeness of data ✘ reliance on retrospective data 10  Case studies ✘ In a deviant case analysis, researchers examine differences between deviant and normal individuals to identify etiological factors. ✘ This approach may also be applied to nonclinical issues such as social trends and adult morale. 11  Case studies ✘ Retrospective Data ○ Retrospective data are recollections of past events that are collected in the present. ○ While your childhood memories constitute retrospective data, your undergraduate portfolio does not since it was collected in the past ○ Memories are altered or reconstructed 12  Field studies ✘ Field studies are nonexperimental studies conducted in the field (real-life settings). ○ The experimenter does not manipulate antecedent conditions 13  Field studies ✘ Naturalistic observation examines subjects’ spontaneous behavior in their actual environments and may obtain more representative behavior than experiments ○ e.g., Ethology (unbotrisuve measure; inconspicuous ) ○ Reactivity - subjects alter their behavior when they know that they are being observed. ○ Systematic observation – use prearrange strategy for recording observations 14  Field studies ✘ A participant-observer study ○ involves field observation in which the researcher is part of the studied group. ○ This approach contrasts with naturalistic observation, where the researcher does not interact with research subjects to avoid reactivity 15  Field studies ✘ A participant-observer study ○ The main problems are invasion of privacy, not telling people that you are studying their behavior, and pretending to be a group member. ○ Pretending to be a group member (e.g., a researcher pretending to be a weight lifter) is a serious problem that requires careful planning. 16 ✘ Field experiments are experiments conducted in real-life settings. ○ Field studies are nonexperimental designs used in real-life settings and include naturalistic observation, unobtrusive measures, participant-observer studies, and surveys 17  Qualitative research ✘ Qualitative research obtains data consisting of words instead of numbers. ✘ This information is obtained through self-reports, personal narratives, and expression of ideas, memories, feelings, and thoughts. ✘ Candidate for Paradigm shift ○ Paradigm – the set of attitudes, beliefs, values, procedures, and methods accepted within a discipline in a particular point in time 18  Qualitative research ✘ Qualitative research is invaluable in studying contextual phenomena, behavior that can only be understood within its context. ✘ For example, we might examine the meaning of religious faith for patients facing impending surgery 19  Qualitative research ✘ Empirical phenomenology might rely on an experimenter’s private experiences or other experiential data: thematic analysis triangulation 1. the researcher’s self-reflection on relevant experiences 2. participants’ oral or written descriptions of their experiences 3. accounts from literature, poetry, visual art, television, theatre, and previous phenomenological (and other) research 20  Field studies ✘ Archival study ○ a descriptive method where researchers reexamine data that were collected for other purposes. ✘ For example, universities collect a wealth of data through surveys like the Graduating Senior Questionnaire (GSQ) and interviews 21  Qualitative Designs ✘ Ethnography is a design of inquiry coming from anthropology and sociology in which the researcher studies the shared patterns of behaviors, language, and actions of an intact cultural group in a natural setting over a prolonged period of time. Data collection often involves observations and interviews 22  Qualitative Designs ✘ Narrative research is a design of inquiry from the humanities in which the researcher studies the lives of individuals and asks one or more individuals to provide stories about their lives (Riessman, 2008). ○ This information is then often retold or restoried by the researcher into a narrative chronology. Often, in the end, the narrative combines views from the participant’s life with those of the researcher’s life in a collaborative narrative (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). 23  Qualitative Designs ✘ Grounded theory is a design of inquiry from sociology in which the researcher derives a general, abstract theory of a process, action, or interaction grounded in the views of participants. This process involves using multiple stages of data collection and the refinement and interrelationship of categories of information (Charmaz, 2006; Corbin & Strauss, 2007, 2015) 24  Mixed Methods Designs ✘ Convergent mixed methods is a form of mixed methods design in which the researcher converges or merges quantitative and qualitative data in order to provide a comprehensive analysis of the research problem. ✘ In this design, the investigator typically collects both forms of data at roughly the same time and then integrates the information in the interpretation of the overall results. Contradictions or incongruent findings are explained or further probed in this design. 25  Explanatory sequential mixed methods ✘ The one in which the researcher first conducts quantitative research, analyzes the results and then builds on the results to explain them in more detail with qualitative research. ✘ It is considered explanatory because the initial quantitative data results are explained further with the qualitative data. It is considered sequential because the initial quantitative phase is followed by the qualitative phase. This type of design is popular in fields with a strong quantitative orientation (hence the project begins with quantitative research), 26 Explanatory sequential mixed methods ✘ It is considered sequential because the initial quantitative phase is followed by the qualitative phase. ✘ This type of design is popular in fields with a strong quantitative orientation (hence the project begins with quantitative research), but it presents challenges of identifying the quantitative results to further explore and the unequal sample sizes for each phase of the study 27  Exploratory sequential mixed methods ✘ The reverse sequence from the explanatory sequential design. In the exploratory sequential approach the researcher first begins with a qualitative research phase and explores the views of participants. The data are then analyzed, and the information used to build into a second, quantitative phase. 28  Exploratory sequential mixed methods ✘ The qualitative phase may be used to build an instrument that best fits the sample under study, to identify appropriate instruments to use in the follow-up quantitative phase, to develop an intervention for an experiment, to design an app or website, or to specify variables that need to go into a follow-up quantitative study. 29  Let’s build a better world!