Week 8, Descriptive research
& Qualitative Studies.
Lecture notes
Purposes of Descriptive Data General overview of a type of behavior or group of people; Generate or test exploratory hypotheses Qantitative data
|
Basic design
issues:
Time frame
|
Lecture notes are here.
Readings
Chapters 9 & 12.
Murder and Medicine: interpreting longitudinal data with multiple variables (full article here). Observational research: Click the image for an excellent example of qualitative / journalistic research on the Down Low among some African-American men. For an excellent example of observational animal research take a look at the article on baboon culture.
 |
Speculative
maps of the super-continent of Pangea, 250 and 135 million years
ago.
Scientific findings in fields that seem remote from each other can influence mutual theory development. Evidence from Palentology about the distribution of dinasour species has been useful in determining when the super-continent of Pangea broke up to form the current continents. Recent Palentological data on a specific dinasour species may be changing that time line. Click the image to read about it, and click here for a good Pangea web site. |
Discussion group Assignment
Introduction and Design of your paper due this week.
(Click for a Word copy of Week
8 assignment).
For this week you will re-write and expand your Week 6 assignment to make some concrete steps toward your paper assignment. Be prepared to present your research ideas for feedback during discussion group. For a model of how the paper is structured see the Guide to Journal Articles.
Your assignment is to write one or two typed pages, but we strongly encourage you to submit a longer version as a first draft of your paper. The more work you do on this now, the more feedback you can get in discussion group, and the better your paper will be!!- Describe your phenomenon. What issue or question will your research address? Frame this in terms of a relation between two concepts or variables. You began this in Week 3, now be more specific and concrete; e.g., The effect of impulsivity on behaviors that create risk for Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs).....
- What theory will you use to understand your phenomenon? Expand – or rewrite – your discussion from Week 3, using at least one reference to a real study, e.g., Jones' (1996) personality theory describes impulsivity as a learned disposition that develops as a consequence of certain social contexts or brain structures. I plan to apply this to understanding how impulsivity may affect behaviors that..... etc.
- What specifically is your hypothesis? Write a concrete prediction that flows from and tests the theory. This requires that you cast the terms of your theory as specific variables. Do not be vague or general here: I hypothesize that if I induce impulsivity in people they will be less able to resist a high risk social situation than will participants who I have not made temporarily impulsive…
- How will you operationally define the variables in your hypothesis? What specific things will you do to measure or manipulate your study variables? “I will induce impulsivity in participants by creating a social situation where they are rewarded for very fast and relatively careless decision making. The “non-impulsivity” condition will be similar, except slower, more careful decisions will be rewarded. The outcome variable will be participants’ responses to a subsequent, hypothetical social situation, where they are given the opportunity to engage in X or Y risky behaviors….
- What will be your overall research design? Will you perform a True experiment, where you manipulate one or several variables, randomly assign participants to groups, etc? What would this look like? Or, will you conduct a Quasi-experiment, where participants are not randomly assigned to groups or are from existing groups, are not blind, or in some other way there are not equivalent groups at baseline? What would this look like? Why would you use one rather than the other?
