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Paul Dudgeon
Psychological Sciences
University of Melbourne
Redmond Barry Room 1202
(immobile) 8344-4456
(email) dudgeon@unimelb.edu.au
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1 Research Methods and Psychology
The Structure of Any Research
3 Readings
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The Structure of All Psychological Research
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Fourteen Basic Principles of Research
Leaving things until half way through, or even later, will make things
much harder.
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Principle 1: Research Question
The primary driving force of all research is the research question (RQ).
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Research Hypothesis versus Statistical Hypothesis
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General Kinds of Research Questions
Many (but not all) research questions involve investigations into three
kinds of relationships among constructs.
1 . . . Association
Implies statistical analysis by correlation or contingency table.
2 . . . Prediction
Implies statistical analysis by regression.
3 . . . Group Difference
Implies statistical analysis by t-test, ANOVA, or linear contrast.
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Real Examples of Research Questions
Why is it good?
Why is it good?
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Principle 2: Populations and Samples
Definition: Population
The set of all individuals of size N either or both (i) relevant to the
construct(s) in a research question, or (ii) to whom a psychological
theory applies (where N may be either finite or (seemingly) infinite).
NB: Populations can be defined by constructs themselves.
Definition: Sample
A set of individuals of size n who are (i) selected by some sampling
scheme from the population, and (ii) assumed to be representative of
that population by use of that sampling scheme.
Random sampling schemes.
Convenience sampling (non-random). . . most psychological research .
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Principle 3: Constructs, Measurements, and Scores
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Measuring Constructs
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Measuring Constructs (cont.)
Arbitrary scales does not contain a true zero, and is not strictly interval.
A score of 0 on a neuroticism scale does not mean a complete
absence of neuroticism.
The difference between a score of 20 and 10 on a neuroticism scale
may not correspond in psychological strength to a difference
between 15 and 5.
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Principle 4: Different Types of Construct Scores
2 Note that the term random does not mean haphazard or unpredictable.
3 We consider distributions in Principle 6 and 8.
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Raw Scores
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Transforming Raw Scores
Researchers may decide to change raw scores on a variable into a new set
of values by applying some mathematical transformation.
Rationale being that the new values might be better in some
principled way.
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Deviation Scores
Deviation Scores
A deviation score (signified by xi ) is calculated by subtracting the mean
value (signified by M or sometimes MX ) on a random variable X from
the value of the original raw score (signified by Xi ) for person i. That is,
xi = Xi − M
E.g., Raw scores on IQ tests are typically standardized such that the
population mean IQ = 100 units and SD = 15 units.
Transformations
Note the progression that can occur in transformations:
1 To go from raw scores (Xi ) to deviation scores (xi ), we subtract the mean
(M) from each raw score.
xi = Xi − M.
2 To go from deviation scores to Z scores, we divide a deviation score by
the sample standard deviation (signified by SD. . . or sometimes s).
(Xi − M) xi
Zi = =
SD SD
3 To go from Zi scores to another standardized score, we re-scale the Zi
score by the desired mean and SD value for the standardised score. E.g.,
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Principle 5: Parameters and Statistics
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Parameters and Populations
4 There are a few exceptions to the general rule stated below that a population
parameter value is unknown. . . e.g., IQ is defined have a population mean of 100 and
population standard deviation of 15
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Samples and Statistics
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Samples and Statistics (cont.)
We assume that there is only one fixed value for a parameter (we are
using a frequentist statistical framework).5
This is the population parameter value.
But remember that. . . in practice we almost always have only one sample
of scores available to us for undertaking our research.
Definition: A Distribution
We can think of a distribution in general terms as being a set of different
numerical values on a random variable that has particular observable
characteristics (e.g, shape, height, spread, frequency of occurrence, etc).
NB: The first two types of distributions are examined in this Principle. The remaining
two are in Principles 8 and 10.
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Sample Distributions vs. A Population Distribution
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25 Sample Distributions of IQ Scores: Histograms (N = 20)
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25 Sample Distributions of IQ Scores: Histograms (N = 100)
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25 Sample Distributions of IQ Scores: Boxplots (N = 20)
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25 Sample Distributions of IQ Scores: Boxplots (N = 100)
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Population Distribution of Individual Scores
The 25 sample distributions in the earlier slides were drawn from the
above population distribution. 33 / 53
Principle 7: Summing, Squaring, and Averaging
NB:
Formulas are sometime an unnecessary source of confusion and/or anxiety.
Not something to learn off by heart just for its own sake.
Look for common patterns and operations, not individual calculations.
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Comparing Formulas for Means and Variances
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Individual Scores, Sample Statistics, and Random Variables
But imagine if we had sets of scores from more than one sample?
92.08 93.79 95.65 96.60 97.06
97.16 97.56 98.57 98.60 99.19
99.72 100.22 100.48 100.54 100.56
101.63 102.77 102.84 103.92 103.97
104.23 104.25 104.28 104.72 105.72
On the right are the 25 sample mean values from these 25 samples.
What would we typically do with such a set of values?
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A Sampling Distribution of Sample Statistics
Although research typically uses scores from only one sample, we can still
conceive of the following occurring as a thought experiment:
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Sampling Distribution versus Sample Distribution
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What Happens As the Number of Samples Increases?
As the number of independent samples increases, the histogram of the sample means
begins to look increasingly like a normal distribution.
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What Happens As the Number of Samples Increases?
As the number of independent samples increases, the histogram of the sample means
begins to look increasingly like a normal distribution.
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What Happens if a Bigger N were Used?
What would happen if the size of each sample was larger? (e.g., n = 100)
If size of each sample is larger, then the variance of the sampling distribution is more
narrow.
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Properties of a Sampling Distribution
1 The kind of parent distribution from which raw individual scores are
repeatedly sampled.
normal, uniform, skewed, or "custom"?
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Sampling Distribution and Standard Error
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Principle 9: Standardising Transformations for Statistics
(Xi − M) xi
Zi = =
s s
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Observed Test Statistic
(θobs − θH0 )
Tobs =
σSE
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Observed Test Statistics and Z Scores
(θobs − θH0 )
Tobs =
σSE
(107.50 − 100)
=
3.0
= 2.5
Indicates that sample mean M = 107.5 is 2.5 standard deviations (i.e., standard error
units) from the assumed population parameter value.
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Principle 9: Standardising Transformations (cont.)
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Readings
In Gravetter & Wallnau (all eds.). The following are recommended for
revision.
Chapter 2: Frequency Distributions
Chapter 3: Central Tendency.
Chapter 4: Variability
Chapter 5: z-Scores: Location of Scores and Standardized
Distributions.
NB: Ignore anything in these chapters that is not covered in this lecture or in this
week’s lab class)
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Summary of Notation Used In Lecture
Notation Meaning
ρ Population correlation coefficient
N Size of the population (finite number or ∞)
n Number of people in a single sample (sample size)
X or Y Generic random variables containing raw scores
Xi or Yi Raw score of i-th person
M (or MX ) Sample mean of X
x or y Generic random variables containing deviation scores
xi or xi Deviation score of i-th person
Z Random variable containing standardised Z scores
Zi Z score of i-th person
µ Population mean
σ2 Population variance
σ Population standard deviation
s2 Sample variance
SD or s Sample standard deviation
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Summary of Notation Used In Lecture (cont.)
Notation Meaning
Pn
i=1
Notion for summation of n values
X§] Set of observed scores from sample §]
M§] Sample mean calculated on sample §]
H0 Null hypothesis (one to be nullified)
Tobs Observed test statistic value from data
θobs Generic notation for single observed sample statistic
θH0 Generic notation for population parameter
σSE Generic notation for standard error of any sample statistic
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