Qualitative Statistics

1. Qualitative Statistics

2. Observation • Can be used to infer correlation, but not causation • Therefore use different statistical tests • Experiments-look to see how different two things might be • Observational Studies-look to show how closely two variables relate to one another • Clarity of what is being observed is essential

3. Types of Observation • Laboratory Observation • Conducted in lab setting for control • Allow for ease in conducting, lower validity • Ethological Observation • In natural environment • High validity, hard to conduct (observation can effect behavior) • Participant Observation • Joining the group you are studying • Ethically questionable/Hard to keep records • Epidemiology • Used most often in medical and environmental health research • A form of indirect observation using complicated statistical analysis to find correlations

4. Collecting Data in Observational Research • 2 difficulties in collecting this data • Selective Perception • We focus on things we are interested in and lose a great deal of info in the process • Anticipatory Schema • We also must deal with our tendency to look for that which we already expect to see • Precautions to avoid these pitfalls • Structure form of observation carefully • Behavioral Coding • Time-Sampling

5. Behavioural Coding • A system that uses a series of categoried for behavior, and fitting all observations that are made into one of these categories • Usually worked out before starting through similar studies or pilot tests • Categories must be reasonably comprehensive, but also limited for managing purposes • Video recording can be done to allow coding to be done later, but camera does not pick up all that the eye can

6. Time-Sampling • Often used with behavioural coding to record what is happening with a group over a period of time • Set intervals are assigned and observations are only made during these intervals • Can give a reasonably accurate picture of typical activities

7. Multiple Observers • Uses independent observers • 2 advantages • One observer may notice something another has missed • Allows researcher to measure the amount of agreement between observers • Any data both agree on can be seen as reasonably valid • Can also measure inter-observer reliability • Correlation between reports of different observers • Above .8 reliable and acceptably accurat • If lower could be for 2 reasons • Too much going on for one person to take in • Observers influenced by personal bias or expectations

8. Ethics of Observational Research • Should always have full consent of person being observed • Feedback about observations purpose and findings needs to be provided • Covert Studies need to follow ethical principles • Utilitarian, cost-benefit criteria • The effects of the participants • Issues of individual integrity • Passive Observations must be understood to have some effect on behavior • Active research can help to alleviate some of the behavioral changes

9. Questionnaire Studies • Allow researcher to collect info from large numbers of people • Used as a starter for many studies to help generate Hypotheses • Can be used to determine how widespread a phenomena is • Vulnerable to response bias-people say what they feel is the right answer

10. Uses of Questionaires • Info on • Facts and Knowledge • Past Behavior • Likely Future Behavior • Motives • Opinions and Attitudes

11. Design • A good questionnaire must • Account for differences in population • Make itself crystal clear to every member • Need to expect the unexpected response and design with that in mind • Avoiding questionnaire fallacy is also important • Assumption you have found answer to behavior when it may be limited scope of options to choose

12. Stages of Design • Working out the aims • What is main point and hypothesis • Selecting the appropriate question styles • How free is the response? • Does it fit analysis needs? • Designing the questions • Need to be structured and phrased with aims in mind • Piloting • Check for lack of clarity • Revising • Go for perfection and check to make sure you can score appropriately • Administering • Choose most suitable technique for topic you are researching • Analysis • Report all valid statistical data, both Quantitative and Qualitative • Reporting • Standard format

13. Common Mistakes • Begin by writing out questions • Making the scope to broad • Creates indifference in respondents • Not understanding purpose for analysis before administering

14. Designing Questions • Sequencing • Arranging common questions together is important • Priming helps respondents think more clearly • Funneling-Broad to Specific • Reverse Funneling-Specific to Broad • Writing • Issues • Leading Questions • Ambiguous Questions • Multiple-Content Questions • Implicit Questions • Over-Complex Vocab • Over-elaborate phrasing • Patronising Tone • Complexity • Open Questions • Pros-High Ecological Validity and Open up New Possibilities • Cons-Hard to analyze • Require Content Analysis- Looking for common trends or qualitative analysis • Closed Questions • Pros- Answers pre-specified, makes for easy analysis • Cons- Low validity

15. Administering • Sampling Technique • Want Representative Samples • Best ways to do this • Random Sampling-Every member has an equally likely chance of being selected • Other Ways • Quota sampling-Selecting people who fit into certain categories and setting quotas that match criteria • Stratified Sampling- Subgroups identified and then random sampling applied to get members from each subgroup • Opportunity Sampling-Whoever is available, most likely to become biased • RDD-Random Digit Dialing, privacy issues • Distribution Method • 4 main ways • Face to face interviewing • Handout Questionnaires • Postal Questionnaires • Telephone Questionnaires

16. Improving Response Rates • Prior Contact • Ease in Responding • Small Rewards

17. Ethical Issues • How are they administered • No Coercing • Maintain Privacy (phone interviews) • What is done with the findings • Confidentiality Key

18. Psychometrics • 2 types • Attitude scales • Psychometric Tests

19. Attitude Scales • Construction more tightly specified and much more rigorous than questionnaires • Constructed to avoid response bias • Can set up a lie scale-questions scattered throughout to show if someone is trying to portray themselves in a certain fashion • Scale should be balanced between yes and no responses

20. Examples of Attitude Scales • Direct-Likert Scale • Steps to using • Decide on topic of investigation • Get several people together and generate broad set of statements about topic • Discard repetitive or badly worded statements • Present list to separate group to determine if statements are positive or negative with regards to topic • Discard ambiguous statements • Select equal number of positive and negative statements and arrange in random order • Allocate 5 point scale • Combine into full LikertQuestionaire • Indirect- Semantic Differential • Asks the respondent to express how the target of the attitude measure would rate on a number of dimensions • Tries to capture the depth of someone’s attitude more than can be seen in conventional ways using bipolar adjectives

21. Assumptions of Attitude Scales • Attitudes can be expressed in verbal statements • Same statement has the same meaning for all participants • Attitudes expressed as verbal statements can be measured and quantified

22. Psychometric Tests • Used to gain insight into aspects of human psychology that are normally hidden, or not immediately apparent • Information can be used to help individual make more informed choices • 2 types • Idiographic-help therapist gain insight into person’s ideas or problems • Nomothetic-used to compare people with one another

23. Test Construction • Very rigorous including several pilot stages • Construction based on: • Reliability • Test-retest-same test administered twice to same participants on different occasions • -1 to 1 • .8 acceptable • Disadvantage-people may remember responses from first time • Split-half-test split in half and given to participants at two times • Spilt is either arbitrary or cumbersome • Alternative forms-2 equivalent tests generated and given on 2 occasions • Disadvantage- transfer of training and familiarity • Validity • Face validity- based on appearance • Not good for psychometric tests • Criterion validity- comparing to some other standard which already exists • 2 types used in psychology • Concurrent validity-comparing scores to those on an existing test • Predictive validity—using scores to predict future success • Construct validity-does test reflect theoretical constructs on which it was based • Questions in subsets scrutinized to see if they correlate to one another more than to questions from other subsets • Ecological Validity-does test reflect real life equivalents • Standardization • Procedures must be followed • Population norms must be established • Test outcomes need to fit criteria of other tests like it

24. Ethical Issues of Psychometric Measurement • Deception used to keep people from fully understanding intent • Technical Instrument • Lie scales • Uses can be unethical socially • Feedback can be falsified • Test must be administered by a professional

25. Interviews • Six Types • Hostile-interrogation • Limited Survey-Market Research interview • Rapport-personal experience interview • Asymmetrical Trust-Doctor-Patient interview • Depth-Anthropological Interview • Phenomenological-Specialist Qualitative Research Interviews

26. Interviewer Effects • Non-verbal signals- can greatly skew an interview • People adjust answers for what they feel are appropriate responses for the interviewer based on social knowledge • These are called interviewer effects and must be considered in any study

27. Interview Skills • Requires Sensitivity • Must develop a rapport • Requires Verbal and Nonverbal skill sets • Verbal • May require standardization of responses to keep verbal influences to a minimum (can be seen as artificial) • Speech registers must be noted, how something is being said before responding with a standardized response • 5 Types of Registers • Frozen • Formal • Consultative • Casual • Intimate • Reflection, sounding back, is an important skill • Amplifying, broadening the scope is a must • Non-commital agreement, pulling out more without giving your views is essential • Non-Verbal • Must pay attention to details (All Important) • Appropriate Eye contact • Posture • Gestures • Tones of voice

28. Conducting Interviews • Establish Range of Information being sought • Determine what type of information needs to be obtained and which type of method will best help you determine your answer • Consider the needs of your interview schedule

29. Structured Interviews • Very similar to a questionnaire, but with interviewer present • Can use probe questions to redirect statements to where interviewer is looking, but are highly standardized • Require same level of planning as developing a questionnaire • Negative is that its rigidity and lack of spontaneous interaction cause changes in interviewee

30. Semi-Structured Interviews • Allow more freedom to ask questions and to answer them • Contains a number of closed questions which require specific answers • Clinical Interviews-semi-structured interviews used in a specific setting for research purposes

31. Open-Structured Interviews • Seem more like a natural conversation • Allows interviewee to answer questions as they feel while being directed towards answers • Primer questions often used to warm people up • Requires Tape Recorder (Can raise ethical issues)

32. Analysing Interview Data • Structured- very easy to generate statistics for since choices are limited • Semi-Structures- Requires content analysis • Info broken into themes • Indications are made of every them mentioned (frequency) and descriptive statistics can be generated • Number of mentions does not always show importance of a theme • Can also look for emotively loaded words • Requires answers collected word for word • Can give clues to attitudes underlying what people say • Can also use salient quotes • Again requires word for word collection • Look for quotations relevant to topic being discussed • Open-Structure Interviews • Can best utilize emotively loaded words and salient quotes • Very time consuming and complicated

33. Stages of Interview Research • Define Aims • Decide form interview will take • Plan content of the interview • Interview Schedule Planned • Same as questionnaire • Requires pilot testing • Conduct the interviews • Analysing and Summarizing the data

34. Ethical Concerns • Putting self outside of professional competence • Gain informed consent • Recording • Reporting • Using Quotes • Insure confidentiality of interviewee and anyone mentioned

35. Case Studies • Focus on single cases and explore them using more than one research method • Allow far more detail in exploration • Can be used to provide theoretical insights to stimulate other research • Regarded throughout history as “unscientific” • Completely false • Much had to do with behaviourist influence • Also feared the dangers of anecdotal evidence

36. Uses of Case Study • Used to explore aspects of human experience • Insight into how psychological processes may be operating • Not used to develop general laws about behavior

37. Advantages of Case Studies • Stimulating New Research • Contradicting Established Theory • Giving new insight into phenomena or experience • Permitting investigation of otherwise inaccessible situations

38. What is a case? • Does not have to mean a single person • 5 Types • Person • Group • Location • Organization • Event

39. Methods used in a Case Study • Multiple methods can be used besides interviewing • Tasks • Repertory grid • Diary

40. Triangulation • Using several different research methods to explore the same phenomenon

41. Systems Analysis Approach • Looks at 4 major dimensions of the system • Elements-The separate parts which make up the system • Order-coherence between elements ex. patterned interactions, mutual understandings and expectations • Process-Changes over time, or transactions or exchanges • Functions-the goals or outcomes of activity within the system

42. Psychological Field • A way of expressing the complexity of social experience by organizing it into different dimensions • Most important to psychologists is psychological dimension • Involves aspects of individual experience and identity • Other important dimensions • Spatial Dimension-relates to the places or locations within which a particular experience is set • Cultural Dimension-symbols and social rituals involved in its occurrence • Historical Dimension-how do previous or related events influence how this one is perceived or dealt with • Social Dimension-involves relationships, lifestyles and social networks

43. Vignettes • Ways of summarizing observations or experiences succinctly • Can be used to draw comparisons and see what others might not see • Requires Thematic Qualitative Analysis

44. Repertory Grids • Allow for the research of idiographic measures • Exploring the distinctive qualities of the individual • Based on the idea of personal constructs • We all have our own subjective view of the world based on our own theories about how the world works • The Grid enables a researcher to explore the personal constructs of an individual • Allows for distinguishing of core constructs and subordinate constructs

45. Laddering • Interviewing technique which uses questioning to move from subordinate constructs to their core constructs • Style needs to be kept light • Can raise ethical concerns

46. Disadvantages of the Case Study • Uniqueness leads to low reliability ratings • Subjective feelings of researcher can influence case study • Selectivity of reporting • Retrospective case studies can be incorrect in assumptions • Can not generalize results

47. Ethical Issues of Case Study • Confidentiality • Labeling and attribution • Stepping out of professional competence

48. Ethnography • Concerned with life as it is lived from day to day • Key Aspects • Data collected through range of sources • Behavior studied in every day contexts • Early stages of data gathering unstructured by the researcher • Exploration conducted in depth

49. Analyzing Documents • Uses evidence provided by documents to understand human experience • Can also be used to analyze what psychologists have learned so far

50. The Diary Method • Respondents required to keep notes about a particular type of experience or event • Can be structured or open-ended • Ultimately must make repeated recordings over time to give clues regarding: • Issues of development • Change • Recurrent experieince