Psychology: Qualitative Research and Question Essay

Submitted By breelouisejames
Words: 838
Pages: 4

Question one:
The proposed question is “do students that use more than one device have a higher number of tallies over 2 minutes than students who only use one device?” The hypothesis being tested is that students that use two or more different devices will have a higher tally in the ‘more than 2 mins’ column than students who only use one device. Data obtained during a class investigation will be used to either support or refute the hypothesis.

Question two:
The investigation design that was used was quantitative observational and the data collected in the experiment was objective meaning that the results are in numerical form based on evidence.

Question three:
In this investigation, the independent or observed variable is the number of devices, the dependent variable is the minutes spent on social media and the extraneous variable is the dishonesty in the number of checks. Other extraneous variables include gender bias, age range and other outside interferences that may have made an impact on the experiment.

Question four:
Table for Social Media Investigation

ONE DEVICE

Participant

MEAN CHECK TALLY - more than two mins
120

0

048

3.5

083

10

218

13

008

25

035

2

076

7

017

2

094

1

108

1.5

030

6

MEAN

6.454545455

MORE THAN ONE DEVICE

PARTICIPANTS
MEAN CHECK TALLY - more than two mins

079
3.5

129
24.5

038
0

065
11

070
10

022
1

MEAN

8.333333333

The results from the experiment show that social media users that use more than one device have a higher amount of checks than users with one device. Due to the small sample size, errors and anomalies are over represented in the mean score.

Question five:
Qualitative data is always subjective and is information about the characteristics of what is being studied, and can either be descriptions, words, meanings, pictures or texts. An example of this could be responses from an interview or personal opinions sourced from gaining recommendations from an expert.
Subjective quantitative data is numerical data and can be obtained through rating scales, questionnaires and surveys.
Objective quantitative data is also numerical and an example of this is information sourced from measures of heart rate, blood pressure and brainwave activity.

Question six:
There are disadvantages and advantages of working with qualitative data. One advantage is the fact that the results are honest and original, directly from the participant, which means that investigators don’t have to base their research directly off of attempting to read body language. However, a disadvantage to working with qualitative data is the chance that participants may lye about information and be untruthful.
An advantage to quantitative observational research designs is that it is not vulnerable to human fault and allows investigators to collect information from subjects in their own environment. Disadvantages include having no control measure meaning it’s susceptible to creating unreliable results. Advantages of using an experimental design is the fact that it’s a controlled experiment allowing credible results, although disadvantages include human fault when collecting data.

Question seven:
Two key differences between using focus groups and using the Delphi technique to collect qualitative data is that one key feature of the focus group method is that it is solely based on group interaction to obtain information where as the Delphi technique uses questionnaires and methods which do not require face to face interaction.

Question eight:
This