Research Methods S2 W2

Research Methods S2 W2

1. Ethics

   • Involves systemising. defending and providing standards by which behaviour can be judged to be right or wrong
   • Normative ethics - the practical task of arriving at moral standard that regulate right and wrong conduct
   • Approaches
     • Consequentialism
       • The rightfulness or wrongness of an act depends upon its consequences
     • Utilitarianism
       • Emphasises the role of pleasure or happiness as a consequence of out actions
     • Dentology - certain acts are right or wrong in themselves, not necessirily in terms of their consequences
       • Categorical imperative - act so that you treat humanity always as an end and never as a means only
   • World health organisation - guide for conducting medical research with human subjects
   • BPS - guide for carrying out psychological research
     • BPS 4 moral principles - respect for the autonomy and dignity of persons, scientific value, social responsibility, maximising benefit and minimising harm

2. Qualitative

   • Not concerned with mathematical probabilities or representativeness
   • Inductive vs hypothetico-deductive i.e data driven vs theory driven
   • be combined with quantitative e.g mixed method research - used to guide quantitative study

3. Mixing Methods

   • Triangulation
     • Different methods used to measure same phenomenon and increase confidence in concussions reached
   • Complementarity
     • Different methods investigate different aspects of the same phenomena to broaden interpretations
   • Development
     • Results used to inform development of other method
   • Initiation
     • Different methods used to investigate different aspects/dimensions of the same phenomena
   • Expansion
     • Different methods used to assess different phenomena to expand scope of study

4. Qualitative data collection

   • Unobstrusive methods - e.g published narratives, archives, simple observation, social media, visual image etc
   • Ethnography - studying social groups in context, over time - changes in attitude, behaviour and roles - researcher as research instrument
     • Emic or insider perspectives - multiple realities - triangulation
   • Participant observation - to observe activities, people, physical aspects of phenomena in natural setting - 3 degrees of participant observation - active, passive, privileged
   • Interviews
     • To collect data about individuals - gain insight and understanding of the phenomena in question - facilitates exploration of topic from different dimensions/perspectives
     • Designed to tap lived experiences and in the semi structured format are the most popular method of qualitative data collection - the paradigmatic feminist model
       • Interview is a 'professional conversation' with a purpose
   • Focus groups - group members can challenge/extend/develop = can have higher ecological validity - group dynamics integral
     • Ps interact with each other as well as moderator - stumili/prompts used
     • Advantages - different perspective, collect large amounts of data, inexpensive - disadvantages - not always suitable for sensitive topics, social desirability bias, group dynamics power issues, ethics