Sir Calvadores

• Qualitative data


  Data gathered through our senses by observing and/or experiencing a phenomenon
• Quantitative data


  Data gathered through the use of tools such as rulers, graduated cylinder, and in our case, psychological tests/tools
• Qualitative Research


  • Goal: discover underlying meanings and patterns of relationships of events or behavior
  • Words - big Q and small q
  • Ethnography
  • Narrative Research
  • Phenomenological Research
  • Grounded theory
  • Case study
• Ethnographic Research


  • Goal: To understand the goals, culture, challenges, motivations, etc of a group of people
  • Ex. Participant observation
• Narrative Research


  • Goal: To weave together a sequence of events to make a coherent story to understand the experience of an individual
  • Ex. McAdams N.A., Lieblich N.A.
• Phenomenological Research


  • Goal: To understand how people experience and interpret an event
  • Ex. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis
• Grounded Theory Research


  • Goal: To provide an explanation and theory about an event
  • Ex. Grounded theory
• Case Study


  • Goal: To gain deep understanding of an event or a person
• Quantitative Research: Goal is to develop and employ mathematical models to test theories and hypotheses
• Hypothesis


  A supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation
• Statistical Hypothesis


  An opinion about a population parameter that may or may not be true
• Properties of an Experimental Hypothesis

  • Synthetic Statement
  • Testable Statement
  • Falsifiable
  • Parsimonious
• Synthetic Statements


  Can be true or false
• Testable Statements


  You must be able to manipulate the antecedent conditions and measure the resulting behavior
• Falsifiable


  A hypothesis must be stated in a way that if the expected outcome is not met, then the researcher can say that the hypothesis is false
• Parsimonious


  State the hypothesis in the simplest way possible
• Four criteria for characterizing measurements

  • Categorization
  • Magnitude
  • Equal Interval
  • Absolute Zero
• Four branches/pillars of descriptive statistics

  • Frequency Distribution
  • Standard Scores
  • Measures of Central Tendency
  • Measures of Variability
• Array


  The arrangement of raw data in an ascending or descending order
• Skewness


  A measure of the asymmetry of the distribution of a variable
• Rational


  (in classical economic theory) economic agents are able to consider the outcome of their choices and recognise the net benefits of each one
• Rational agents will select the choice which presents the highest benefits
• Consumers act rationally by


  Maximising their utility
• Producers act rationally by


  Selling goods/services in a way that maximises their profits
• Workers act rationally by


  Balancing welfare at work with consideration of both pay and benefits
• Governments act rationally by


  Placing the interests of the people they serve first in order to maximise their welfare
• Groups assumed to act rationally


  • Consumers
  • Producers
  • Workers
  • Governments
• Rationality in classical economic theory is a flawed assumption as people usually don't act rationally
• Marginal utility


  The additional utility (satisfaction) gained from the consumption of an additional product
• If you add up marginal utility for each unit you get total utility
• Multiple level


  Having more than one independent variable (IV)
• Example


  • Testing if sleeping has an effect on attentiveness. 8 hours of sleep has been proven to be enough to be attentive. How much sleep is too much? How much sleep is not enough?
• One IV with two levels


  One independent variable with two treatment conditions
• One IV with multiple levels

  One independent variable with more than two treatment conditions
• You are having a hard time in Zoology, and you want to pass the subject. So, you decided that you will start studying hard for Zoo. As a psych major, you know that a lot of factors can affect information encoding. You found out from your conversations with your classmates who are really good in Zoo that some of them study at night; some study during the day; some study while listening to music; and some prefer to study in silent places. You wanted to maximize your study hour by adopting the best studying habit. To do this, you need to test in an experiment which of the study habits is the best.
• IV1


  Independent Variable 1
• IV2


  Independent Variable 2
• DV


  Dependent Variable
• Research question for study habit 1: How much did the study schedule (day or night) affect the zoo exam score?
• Research question for study habit 2: How much did the music (absence or presence) affect the zoo exam score?