METHODS ANDTECHNIQUES NO.2

METHODS ANDTECHNIQUES NO.2

1. CASE STUDIES

   • Systematic, detailed investigation of a single individual e.g. Freud's case of Anna O.
     • AO2: Pooling data from similar cases can be informative, lots of detail is produced and only way to deal with rare instances of behaviour e.g. 'Genie'. However, generalisability is low and data may be forgotten from the past.

2. SELF-REPORT

   • QUESTIONNAIRES: List of pre-written questions including Open (free responses), Closed (alternative responses) or a Rank-Order (asked to rank something) questions.
     • AO2: It can be a cheap and effcient way of gathering large amounts of data but causal relationships are dependent on the quality of the questions, hard selecting a sample and validity can be questioned.
   • INTERVIEWS: Questions are presented aurally and can be structured, semi-structured or unstructured.
     • AO2: Can provide detailed/realistic data, simple to do, findings can be generalisable from a large sample and can be insightful but reliability can be questioned as truthfulness may be doubtful, can be time-consuming and right sample may be hard to find.

3. CORRELATION ANALYSIS

   • CORRELATION TELLS YOU NOTHING ABOUT THE CAUSE!
     • AO2: Advantages include investigation in future research are indicated by naturally occurring relationships between variables. However, extraneous variables cannot be controlled, cause and effect cannot be inferred and its not always sensitive to a more complex relationship between variables.
     • COEFFICIENT: Statistic that shows strength of a correlation- ranges between -1 and +1.
   • NEGATIVE (less than 0): Downward slope. More perfect the line, the closer the correlation is to -1.
   • POSITIVE (more than 0): Upward Slope. More perfect the line, the closer the correlation is to +1.
   • ZERO: No slope is seen. No pattern.

4. QUALITATIVE VS. QUANTITATIVE

   • QUANTITATIVE: Is CONTROLLED, focused on collecting NUMBERS, analysis is OBJECTIVE and its to do with QUANTITY.
   • QUALITATIVE: is LESS CONTROLLED, focused on collecting OPINIONS, analysis can be SUBJECTIVE and its to do with QUALITY.
   • The use of each depends on which type of research is being done.