Research Methods

1
Research Methods Design in Psychology

• Lecture 1
• Introduction to Survey Research
• Lecturer James Neill

2
Overview

• Purpose
• Goals
• Types
• Topics
• Advantages
• Disadvantages

3
Purpose of Research

• Two broad purposes of research
• information gathering
• theory testing and building

4
Survey Research Goals

• Exploratory
• What psychological issues are being faced by
  Asian Tsunami survivors?
• Descriptive
• Working conditions (hours, pay, etc.) of
  psychologists
• Explanatory
• Are extraverts happier?
• Predictive
• Does a couples length of time together prior to
  having children predict relationship satisfaction
  after having children?

5
Types of Research

• Experimental
• Control over extraneous variables
• random assignment
• Quasi-experimental
• Control over some extraneous variables
• Non-random assignment
• Non-experimental
• Minimal control over extraneous variables

6
Survey Research Characteristics

• Surveys are widely used in non-experimental
  social science research
• Often use interviews or questionnaires
• Involve real-world samples
• Often quantitative, but can be qualitative

7
Common topics in survey research

• Demographics
• Attitudes and opinions
• Behaviours
• Motivation and personality
• Emotion, satisfaction, stress, etc.

8
Advantages of survey-based research

• Ecological validity
• Access to wide range of participants
• Potentially large amounts of data
• May be more ethical (than experiments)

9
Disadvantages of survey-based research

• Lack of control - less internal validity
• Self-report data only
• Potentially low compliance rates