A LEVEL RESEARCH METHODS REVISION, Lecture notes of Psychology

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A LEVEL

RESEARCH METHODS

REVISION

A LEVEL RESEARCH METHODS

CASE STUDIES

CASE STUDIES

• Many techniques may be used (the people may be

interviewed or observed in daily life)

• Psychologists might use IQ or personality tests or a

questionnaire to produce psychological data about the

target person or group of people

• They may use the experimental method to test what the

target person/group can or cannot do

• The findings are organised into themes to represent the

individual’s thoughts, emotions, experiences and abilities

• The data therefore may be presented in a qualitative way,

though quantitative data may also be included (like scores

from psychological tests)

• Case studies are generally longitudinal (i.e. they follow the

individual or group over an extended period of time)

CASE STUDIES

• Examples of case studies are:
  • Henry Molaison (HM) – who had his hippocampus

removed to reduce epileptic fits and resulted in an

inability to form new long-term memories

• Little Hans – to illustrate the principle of psychoanalysis

(Little Hans demonstrated the oedipus complex)

• Phineas Gage – an explosion of dynamite drove a tamping

iron through his skull. He survived despite losing a great

deal of brain matter and was able to function fairly

normally. This was important in the development of brain

surgery to remove tumours as it showed that parts of the

brain could be removed without having a fatal effect

CASE STUDIES - EVALUATION LIMITATIONS

• It is difficult to generalise from individual cases as each one has unique characteristics
• E.g. HM told us a great deal about the effects of his operation on memory, but we do not know to what extent his epilepsy rather than the brain damage may have affected aspects of his behaviour
• There are important ethical issues such as confidentiality and informed consent
• Many cases are easily identifiable due to their unique characteristics, even when real names are not given
• Many individuals like HM or Little Hans are not able or not asked to give informed consent
• Psychological harm may also be an issue when an individual like HM is tested repeatedly over decades
• It is often necessary to use recollection of past events as part of the case history, which may be unreliable
• Researchers may lack objectivity as they get to know the case

A LEVEL RESEARCH METHODS

CONTENT ANALYSIS

CONTENT ANALYSIS

SAMPLING METHOD

• The researcher has to decide the following:
  • If analysing the content of books, does the researcher look at every page or just every nth page (like time sampling)?
  • If comparing the content in various books, does the researcher select books randomly from a library or identify certain characteristics (e.g. look at books that are biographies or romantic fiction)?
  • If analysing adverts on TV, does the researcher sample behaviours every 30 seconds for example, or note whenever certain behaviours occur?

CONTENT ANALYSIS

METHOD OF REPRESENTING DATA

• Data can be recorded in each behavioural

category in two different ways ( qualitatively and quantitatively )

• If we were to perform a content analysis of

paintings then we would first identify the behavioural categories and then record instances in each category:

• We can count instances = a quantitative analysis
• We can describe examples in each category = a qualitative analysis

CONTENT ANALYSIS - EVALUATION STRENGTHS

• Content analysis tends to have high ecological validity as it is based on observations of what people actually do (real communications that are current and relevant, like books that people read)
• When sources can be retained or accessed by others, the content analysis can be replicated, and therefore the observations can be tested for reliability LIMITATIONS
• Observer bias reduces the objectivity and validity of findings as different observers may interpret the meaning of the behavioural categories differently
• Content analysis is likely to be culture biased as interpretation of verbal or written content will be affected by the language and culture of the observer and the behavioural categories used

THEMATIC ANALYSIS

• One problem with qualitative data is that it is difficult

to summarise

• It cannot be analysed like quantitative data can (e.g.

with measures of central tendency and dispersion, and also with graphs)

• Instead , qualitative data is summarised by

identifying themes in the material to be analysed

• The material to be analysed might be a book, adverts

on TV, a transcript from an interview, or a researcher might want to analyse graffiti or analyse videotaped play sessions with children

THEMATIC ANALYSIS GENERAL PRINCIPLES APPLIED TO THE ANALYSIS OF GRAFFITI

APPLIED TO THE ANALYSIS OF VIDEOTAPED PLAY SESSIONS Read and re-read the data transcript objectively, trying to understand the meaning communicated and the perspective of the participants. No notes should be made

Study a photograph/written record of a wide range of graffiti

Watch videos of play sessions/read transcription of what happened (including facial expressions and body movements) Break the data into meaningful units In the case of graffiti it would be each item of graffiti

Each verbal and non-verbal movement would constitute a unit Assign a label or code to each unit (these are the initial categories used). Each unit may be given more than one code/label

Each unit of graffiti is given a code to describe its meaning (e.g. humour, love, power, domination)

Each unit is coded, e.g. “playing with toy”, “sadness expressed” or “request made”

Combine simple codes into larger categories/themes and then instances can be counted or examples provided

Larger categories are developed which combine units, like “interpersonal concerns”

Larger categories developed such as “negative emotion”

A check can be made on the emergent categories by collecting a new set of data and applying categories. They should fit the new data well if they represent the topic area investigated

A LEVEL RESEARCH METHODS

RELIABILITY

RELIABILITY OF OBSERVATIONAL TECHNIQUES

Assessing Reliability

• It is important that the record is a reliable measurement of behaviour - In order to do this the observer repeats the observations a second time (e.g. by watching a video recording)
• If the observations are reliable, then the second set of observations should be more or less the same as the first
• The issue with this is that the observer may be biased and so what they think they see may be affected by their beliefs/stereotypes
• A better way to assess accuracy is to have two or more observers making separate recordings and then compare these records
• The extent to which the observers agree on the observations they record is called inter-observer reliability - This can be calculated as a correlation coefficient for pairs of scores - A result of 0.80 or more suggests good inter-observer reliability

RELIABILITY OF OBSERVATIONAL TECHNIQUES Improving Reliability: Behavioural Categories

• If the score for inter-observer reliability is low,

there are ways to improve this

• It may be that the behavioural categories were not operationalised clearly enough, so one observer may have interpreted an action as one thing (e.g. “talking”) but another may have interpreted it as another thing (e.g. shouting”). So behaviour categories need to be clearer
• It may be that some observers just need more practice using the behavioural categories so they can respond more quickly