Psychological Research Methods (Essay Sample)

Psychological Research Methods
Name
Institutional Affiliation
Read all instructions carefully, and type your answers next to or under each answer. Pay attention to point value and suggested length for each answer.
Total test is out of 40 points.
Part I: What Type of Research? Type your answer in the blank. One point for each correct response.
For each of the following 5 scenarios, decide whether the research should be classified as:
E (Experiment)
Q (Quasi-experiment),
C (Correlation), or
N (Not an experiment, Not Correlation, and Not a Quasi-experiment)
1.____ A recent report that examined police and hospital records across the U.S. found that as communities reported higher rates of gun ownership, they also experienced a greater likelihood of accidental death and suicide completion.
Correlation Research (C)
2.____ The number of traffic crashes due to drunk driving in states and municipalities that have legalized marijuana is significantly lower when compared with marijuana prohibition states.
Correlation Research (C)
3. ____Two-thirds of Americans in a recent study said they wished their politicians would take the lead on the climate crisis, and seven in ten wanted the country to sign back onto the Paris Global Climate Accord.
Quasi-Experiment (Q)
4 ___ A social psychologist wonders if the level of obedience to authority norms differed across cultures. He designs a laboratory study similar to Milgram’s to test the effect of an authority figure on people’s willingness to obey, and performs the study in Germany, Canada, Australia, and South Africa. He analyzes the findings by comparing the mean national levels of obedience to the others.
Experimental Research (E)
5. ____ A professor desperately wants her 99 students to pass an exam, and hypothesizes that perhaps printing the exams on nicer color paper might help them to relax and be more successful. She is not sure what colors to use, so she copies 33 exams on blue, 33 on yellow, and 33 exams on light green paper, then arranges the exams in a random order before handing them out. Alas, there was no difference in scores based on the paper color.
Experimental Research (E)
Short answer questions: One paragraph maximum per answer. Answer any FIVE. If you choose to answer 2, make sure you answer all three parts. Label your answers. 5 points max per answer.
1. What does “saturation” mean? How is it related to qualitative interviewing?
Saturation, as applied in qualitative interviewing refers to a method used to determine whether there is enough data from the given study so as to enable the researcher to come up with a more robust understanding about the phenomenon.
2. YOU MAY ANSWER IN ONE OR TWO SENTENCES FOR EACH OF A, B, & C:
a) Create a research question that is appropriate for an experimental study.
How does drug and substance abuse in learners affect their performance in school?
b) Create a research question that is appropriate for a non-experimental survey.
What is the relationship between the performance of students who come from high-income background and those who come from low-income backgrounds?
c) Create a research question appropriate for a qualitative interview study.
How does the level of experience affect the performance of football players?
3. Compare transferability in qualitative research, and external validity in quantitative research. How are they the same and different, and how is each achieved?
In qualitative research, transferability refers to the extent to which the results obtained can be generalised in other given settings or contexts while external validity refers to the degree to which the researcher can generalise the findings of the research to measures, situations and groups of people.
4. Using complete sentences, write a one-paragraph results section that summarizes the following survey data taken from a national NBC/Washington Post poll administered on March 2, 2021.
Do you approve or disapprove of the way Pres. Biden is handling …. ?
Approve Disapprove No opinion
a. Jobs 58 40 2
b. COVID 68 364
c. Race relations 36 51 13
d. Health care 61 30 9
5. Identify at least three problems with the following survey item from a national poll of voters:
I would hesitate to vote for a candidate who did not support reducing government spending on education and transfer payments to indigent individuals.
Strongly disagree disagree agree Strongly agree
The problems with the survey item include;
1 Not motivating the respondents to provide honest and more accurate answers because they are confined to predetermined choices.
2 The respondents may not be comfortable in providing their responses.
3 The survey scope in the survey item is erroneous.
4 It may not encourage the respondents to clarify their responses.
6. Using an example that you create, demonstrate the difference between “in vivo” coding and “constructed codes” in qualitative data analysis.
In vivo coding refers to the assignment of a label to a data structure like interview transcripts using short phrases that are are obtained from the data section (Manning, 2017). Example is “hot-rodder” which is usually achieved using the language of the participant. On the other hand, constructed codes refer to the procedural rules and standards which secure data uniformity as well as protecting the public interest during the research process.
Essay Question: Essay Question 10 points. Choose one of the following questions to answer in detail. Use about a page for your