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Research Methods and Statistics in Psychology PDF

714 Pages·2009·5.68 MB·English
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5th Edition Research Methods Statistics and in Psychology Hugh Coolican RMSP Prelims pages 24/2/09 8:14 am Page i 5th Edition Research Methods Statistics and in Psychology Hugh Coolican RMSP Prelims pages 24/2/09 8:14 am Page ii Acknowledgements To Alison Wadeley for a very thoughtful and useful review of the fourth edition. To my students whose assignments always show me what’s needed and on whom I try out some of the ideas. To tutors and enquirers who have offered suggestions or pointed out errors. A special thanks to all staff involved at Hodder Education but especially Tamsin Smith, Bianca Knights, and to Susan Dunsmore for some painstaking copy-editing. Every effort has been made to trace and acknowledge the owners of copyright. The publishers will be glad to make suitable arrangements with any copyright holders whom it has not been possible to contact. First published in Great Britain in 2009 by Hodder Education Published 2013 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY, 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © 2009, Hugh Coolican All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. The advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of going to press, but neither the authors nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress ISBN 13: 978-0-340-98344-7 (pbk) Typeset in 10/13pt StempelSchneidler by Dorchester Typesetting Group Ltd ii RMSP Prelims pages 24/2/09 8:14 am Page iii Dedication To Rama, Kiran and Jeevan for your understanding and support during yet another ‘book year’. iii RMSP Prelims pages 24/2/09 8:14 am Page iv RMSP Prelims pages 24/2/09 8:14 am Page v Contents Preface viii 1 Psychology,science and research 1 Why psychology and science? Science – not a subject but a way of thinking;So what is this scientific method then? Asking why? Generating theories for laws;The hypothetico-deductive method;How psychologists actually do scientific research; What are the main features of a psychological investigation? Qualitative data and qualitative approaches 2 Measuring people – variables,samples and the qualitative critique 28 Variables;Operational definitions of psychological constructs;Reliability and validity; Samples;Probability based sampling methods;Non-probability based sampling methods;Purposive sampling;Introducing the qualitative/quantitative debate 3 Experiments and experimental designs in psychology 56 The role of experiments in gathering evidence – demonstrating cause and effect; Alternative explanations;Features of the true experiment;Simple experimental designs (Independent samples design,Repeated measures design,Matched-pairs design);Single participant or small n design 4 Validity in psychological research 81 The interpretation of experiments;Sources of variance on the experiment;Validity in experiments and other research designs;Types of validity (Statistical conclusion; Internal;Construct); Tackling confounds in psychological research;Expectancy;External validity;Meta-analysis 5 Quasi-experiments and non-experiments 106 The field and the laboratory;True experiments and field experiments;The quasi- experiment;Non-experimental research;Control and validity in the laboratory and in the field 6 Observational methods – watching and being with people 123 Observation in general;Observation as a technique or as an overall design; Controlled observation;Qualitative non-participant observation;Role-play and simulation;The diary method;Participant observation;Case studies;Indirect observation 7 Interview methods – asking people direct questions 150 Introduction – Self-report methods;Structured interviews;Effects of interpersonal variables in interviews;Types of interview;Semi-structured or open interviewing – gathering qualitative data;Surveys 8 Psychological tests and measurement scales 172 Introduction;Measurement vs.information gathering;scales,tests,inventories and questionnaires;Open and closed questions;Attitude scales;Central issues in the use of psychological scales;Scale items – what to avoid in statement construction;Projective tests;Intelligence and personality tests;Reliability,validity and standardisation v RMSP Prelims pages 24/2/09 8:14 am Page vi 9 Comparison studies – cross-sectional,longitudinal and cross-cultural studies 206 What are comparison studies? Cross-sectional studies;Longitudinal studies;Evaluation of longitudinal and cross-sectional studies;Cross-cultural studies 10 Qualitative approaches in psychology 222 Psychology and the positivist paradigm;The problem with quantification in psychological research;Qualitative data gathering (Grounded theory,Interpretive phenomenological analysis,Discourse analysis,Thematic analysis,Ethnography,Action research) Participative and collaborative research;Memories as narratives;A feminist perspective; Contemporary qualitative methods 11 Statistics – organising the data 247 Measuring things;Different levels of measurement;Summarising data;Measures of central tendency;Measures of dispersion;Population parameters,sample statistics and sampling error;Using SPSS to calculate statistics;Appendix – Statistical notation and symbols 12 Graphical representation of data 287 Graphs in general;The bar chart;Line charts;The histogram;Exploratory data analysis; Using SPSS to produce your charts 13 Frequencies and distributions 305 Dealing with larger data sets;Percentiles,deciles and quartiles;The normal distribution;z scores;Standardisation of psychological measurements;Sampling distributions;Confidence intervals;Skewed distributions;Kurtosis 14 Significance testing – was it a real effect? 322 Significance decisions;The null and alternative hypotheses;Probability;Rejecting the null hypothesis;The standard level of significance;Critical values;Significance testing – the basic model;Rejection regions;Frequency distributions and probability distributions;Type I and type II errors;The question of power and effect size;Significance ‘levels’;Directional and non-directional hypotheses – one and two tailed tests 15 Testing for differences between two samples 350 Tests of difference between two conditions or groups (Parametric tests:the t test for related data;the t test for unrelated data;the single sample t test) Data assumptions for t tests;Non-parametric tests of difference (Wilcoxon’s T,Mann-Whitney U,The binomial sign test);SPSS procedures of two condition difference tests;Effect size and power 16 Tests for categorical variables and frequency tables 397 Tests on two-way frequency tables;Unrelated data – the Chi-square test of association; The 2 x 2 chi-square;More complex chi-square (r x c designs);The ‘goodness of fit’test; SPSS procedure for conducting a r x c chi-square test;Multi-way frequency tables and loglinear analysis;Conducting a three-way frequency analysis in SPSS 17 Correlation 428 Simple correlation;Measurement of a correlation;Correlation coefficients (Pearson product-moment,Spearman’s rho);Significance and correlation coefficients;Variance estimates;SPSS procedures for correlation;What you can’t assume with a correlation; Categorical variables;Common uses of correlation in psychology;Regression and multiple regression;Multiple predictions;Partial and semi-partial correlation;Regression coefficients;Effect size and power;Conducting a regression analysis in SPSS vi RMSP Prelims pages 16/10/09 12:03 pm Page vii 18 Multi-level analysis – differences between more than two conditions 475 More complex tests;One-way ANOVA – unrelated designs;The F ratio statistic;Effect size;A priori and post hoc comparisons;Estimating power in one-way ANOVA;Non- parametric ANOVA equivalent – Kruskal–Wallis (and the Jonckheere trend test); MANOVA;ANCOVA;SPSS procedures for one-way ANOVA;Kruskal-Wallis in SPSS 19 Multi-factorial designs 501 Using two or more independent variables;Central features (interaction effects,main effects,simple effects);Effect sizes and power;Three-way ANOVA calculation;SPSS procedures for two-way between groups ANOVA 20 ANOVA for repeated measures designs 518 Related designs (rationale for one-way repeated measures ANOVA);Between subjects and between conditions variation;Data assumptions for repeated measures ANOVA; Two-way related design;ANOVA mixed design – one repeated measure and one unrelated factor;More complex ANOVA designs;Effect size and power;A non- parametric equivalent – the Friedman test for correlated samples;SPSS procedures for repeated measures ANOVA and Friedman 21 Choosing a significance test for your data (and internet resources) 540 Choosing an appropriate test;Tests for two samples;Tests for more than two samples; Computers and the Internet 22 Analysing qualitative data 554 Quantitative analysis of qualitative data;Qualitative content analysis;Qualitative analysis of qualitative data;Doing qualitative research;Considerations for a qualitative project;Data analysis;Procedures in major approaches (grounded theory,interpretive phenomenological analysis,discourse analysis);Writing up the report;Reliability and validity – how are qualitative studies evaluated? 23 Ethical issues in psychological research 585 Introduction;Publication and access to data;The conduct of research with human participants;Research with animals – case for and against;conclusion 24 Planning your practical and writing up your report 603 Planning your practical project (the overall aim,the design,the samples,the material,the procedure,ethics);Writing your practical report;Comments on a student practical report (a better report of the same practical) Appendix to Chapter 22 641 Appendix 650 References 671 Index 689 vii RMSP Prelims pages 24/2/09 8:14 am Page viii Preface This book is for anyone starting out on a psychology course which contains a fair amount of hands-on practical research training and the writing up of psychological reports. It will be most useful for those studying for a psychology degree but will also serve students on Masters courses in psychology (where methods knowledge may have become a little rusty), on other social sciences courses, on nursing degrees and in several other related disciplines. The common factor is the need to understand how researchers gather data in a fair and unbiased manner and how they analyse and interpret those data. A feature that I’m sure all such readers would be pleased to find is a friendly common-sense approach that uses clear concrete examples to explain otherwise abstract and sometimes complex notions. In the past this book has been praised for doing just that and I truly hope it continues to do so. A basic premise of the book has always been that people start out on research methods courses with many of the basic principles already acquired through their experience of everyday life. To some extent the job of tutors and writers is to harness those concepts and to formalise and then elaborate upon them. Before you do psychology you probably know just what a fair experiment would be, what an average is, what it means when people deviate a lot from an average and even the fundamentals of statistical significance– you can probably tell intuitively when samples of girls’ and boys’ reading scores differ by an amount that cannot be explained just by chance variation. Hence you are not really starting out on something you know little about no matter how frightened you may be of numbers and science. One of the bonuses of studying research methods and statistics is that you greatly enhance what Neil Postman (1987) referred to as your personal ‘crap detection’ system, to put it rather crudely. That is, a study of methods and statistics at the very least and done properly will enable your ability to spot gross errors in the statistical arguments of advertisers, politicians and charlatans who try to use numbers or ‘findings’ to bamboozle you. There are several examples of such poor methods or data massaging in the book and hopefully you will later be able to argue ‘Ah but,…..’ at dinner parties and become everybody’s best friend as you point out the flaws in the assumptions people make from ‘findings’ that have made the news. Many people start psychology courses with a very strong fear of the statistics that may be involved. This is understandable if, for you, the world of numbers has always been something of a no-go area. However, statistics is one of the easiest areas of maths (it must be, both my children said so, even the one for whom maths was a nightmare). You should not have to do a lot of by-hand calculating, unless your tutors are sadists! Psychology is not about (re-)learning to do sums; it’s about using statistical tools to summarise data and to show people that we have found a relationship between the data that supports a particular view or theory about how people work. Where you do have to calculate, be assured that the actual calculation steps for most procedures neverextend beyond the basic capability of the average 11 year old, and can all be done on a £2 calculator. In this fifth edition (I can’t believe this book started 20 years ago!) there have been several changes. Exercises have been moved so that they follow each substantive piece of work rather than viii RMSP Prelims pages 24/2/09 8:14 am Page ix appearing only at the end of a chapter. There are an increased number of stop and think exercises now in boxes called ‘Pause for thought’. Instructions for SPSS now cover the latest edition (v.16) as well as the last few previous versions for the most part. In the statistics sections the way to report each statistical test, introduced in the fourth edition, has been augmented in each case by the way to report effect size and confidence limits where appropriate. Qualitative methods, as ever, are integrated into general chapters (e.g. interviewing, observation and the quantitative–qualitative debate in Chapter 2) and two specialist chapters. The first edition was almost certainly the first general methods text in the UK to pay specific attention to qualitative methods. These have been updated again and there is a new appearance for narrative analysis and an expanded section on thematic analysis. The example qualitative article has been replaced by one that much more clearly follows a grounded theory approach. For qualitative methods in particular, but also in general, there are far more website addresses to consult for further information and resources. There are several attempts to tackle ‘psychology myths’ such as what the Hawthorne studies really showed, how Zimbardo biased his famous study and, more substantially, a debate on the much misused term ‘ecological validity’ which is extended on the companion website, www.routledge.com/cw/coolican . This companion website is a major new technology addition and I have used it to post several more extended debates and detailed information that could not have appeared in the book itself for reasons of size. I hope to continue to add to this site, including more exercises, more debates and further links to useful resources as they appear. I encourage feedback, queries and, yes, people just telling me I’m wrong about something – how else would we learn? This time around you will be able to e-mail me your queries using the website and I will attempt to provide a clear response. Finally I’d like to repeat something from the fourth edition preface. While you toil away, writing those inevitable reports, just keep thinking that none of the truly fascinating ideas about human behaviour and experience and none of the wonderful insights about ourselves that can be gained on a short psychology course would be possible without someone (many committed people in fact) doing exactly as you are doing! ix

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