Midterm Study Guide EDHD 306 Research Methods in Human Development Spring 2014 1 What is research You find out for yourself answers to questions you are interested in using certain methods and share those answers with a community of other scientists who evaluate the quality each others work with the hope of building a knowledge base that comes as close as possible to the truth Quantitative class focus number qualitative words approaches to research Scientific writing and APA style Scientific writing is distinguished from other types of writing in the following ways Precision and clarity of expression Economy of expression Organization Work of others is acknowledged APA Style rules Times New Roman 12pt Double spaced 1inch margin Running head top left and page numbers top right Organization o Title name affiliation school o Abstract summary 150 250 words what found who studied o Intro rationale for conducting study problem statement hypothesis research question review of previous lit on that topic o Method info so it can be replicated participants age gender materials questions how measured survey procedure steps o Results statistical analysis o Discussion strengths and weaknesses future research that should be done summary of results in normal terms implications practical appliances o References APA in text citations within body of writing o Citing what someone found Author and year in parenthesis if author is not in sentence Authors names in same order on manuscript not ABC 2 authors parenthesis symbol text write out and 6 or more authors et al always 3 5 authors 1st time write out all authors names again use et al o Direct quote happens rarely always paraphrase Add page number p APA full references end of paper o Hanging indents after first line o Authors first initial symbol everyone s name o Only capitalize first letter of title pronouns after colon cap letter o No issue only volume page o Journal in italics title of article not italic o Alphabetize all citations but not within one citations authors 2 Reasons for conducting research o Limitations of intuition o Limitations of authority The empirical approach Based on data Challenge what we ve been told by doing it yourself Observations accurately reported to others Data Search for discovery and verification of ideas Verification Open exchange and competition among ideas only best ideas supported Share ideas Peer review of research only highest quality work is published Peer review Goals of science Behavior explain understand humans Describe Predict patterns Determine cause effect Understand and explain apply change improve Basic vs applied research Basic theoretical issue knowledge for knowledge s sake no immediate practical implication curious university level Applied tied to real situation intervention work apply issues and solutions to problems research institutes Sources of ideas o Observation personal experience Personal experience Be careful of conflict of interest bias emotional tie or favor one side o Theory Systematic body of ideas about a topic phenomenon carefully thought out 2 functions Generate and explain behavior Generate new knowledge Characteristics of good theories ability to account for data explanatory relevance testability prediction of novel events parsimony simple but explains a lot o Previous research past research What have other researchers found familiarity with literature allows to see patterns inconsistencies Addresses prior methodological flaws new contexts different samples Research questions and hypotheses Research questions allow you to test it empirically isolates specific variables to be explained ex include population such as age which is more effective a or b Hypothesis tentative explanation that can be tested posed in form that can be rejected Non directional doesn t tell how boredom is related to students academic performance 3 Directional aka predictions predict relationship pos neg Students who report greater levels of boredom are more likely to have lower academic performances The Belmont report 1979 3 ethical guidelines for research o Beneficence Maximize benefits for participants therapy treatments money material learn acquire new skill satisfaction Minimize harm for participants physical harm psychological harm stress anxiety depression self esteem loss loss of confidentiality o Autonomy respect for persons Treat participants as individuals who make their own decision Informed consent form describe study permission to drop out procedure risks benefits Issues of autonomy Special populations under 18 Withholding information in consent form might change their normal behavior Deception tell participants looking at something else must debrief at end of study and explain why o Justice Fairness researcher and participants share costs benefits of research all participants treated equally Institutional Review Board Required for all institutions that receive federal funds Purpose ensure doing ethical research weigh risk and reward to society o Categorization of risk involved Research is categorized reviewed and approved based on the amount of risk Exempt research normal educational studies anonymous surveys Minimal risk research make nervous uncomfortable Greater than minimal risk research deception physical psych stress sensitive info not anonymous Fraud and plagiarism Variables o Different types Fraud fabrication of data ex failure to replicate Plagiarism Taking another s work and representing it as your own peer review process Definition an event behavior situation or individual characteristic that varies Calculated controllable easily measured objective observable eye color height weight gender ethnicity resting heart rate Eye color physical extroversion psychological Latent variables fluctuation error self esteem neuroticism performance in class not easily observed measured scale harder to measure o Conceptual and operational definitions Conceptual dictionary definition 4 Operational concrete expression of how a variable will be measured or manipulated discuss abstract concepts in concrete terms should align with conceptual definition Nonexperimental method o Definition simply measuring variables NOT manipulating or changing anything look at relationships observing association patterns Keywords relationship measure correlate associated o General issues Can not establish causality Don t know direction of cause and effect Third Variable Problem unseen variable that influences both