Master
2021/2022
Qualitative and Quantitative Research Methods in Psychology
Category 'Best Course for Broadening Horizons and Diversity of Knowledge and Skills'
Category 'Best Course for New Knowledge and Skills'
Type:
Compulsory course (Applied Social Psychology)
Area of studies:
Psychology
Delivered by:
School of Psychology
Where:
Faculty of Social Sciences
When:
1 year, 1-3 module
Mode of studies:
offline
Open to:
students of one campus
Master’s programme:
Applied Social Psychology
Language:
English
ECTS credits:
8
Contact hours:
100
Course Syllabus
Abstract
The course reviews the principal steps taken during a psychological research study and aims to provide students with the knowledge and competencies necessary to plan and conduct research projects of their own leading to M.Sc. dissertation and future scientific publications.
Learning Objectives
- learn about the principal steps of a research project in Psychology, as well as the choices that each step involves and the different possibilities that exist;
- learn about the possibilities and limitations of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods approaches in application to different research questions;
- learn to formulate research questions and develop them into testable hypotheses;
- explore the possibilities of data collection and different approaches to sampling, learn to choose an appropriate sampling approach for their research question;
- learn about the different paradigms of measurement in psychology and ways to apply the essential psychometric criteria to evaluate the quality of a quantitative measurement approach;
- study the common experimental, quasi-experimental, and non-experimental plans and learn to evaluate research plans, discover and prevent the associated threats to data validity;
- practice in preparing their quantitative data for analysis, evaluating data quality, working with missing data;
- learn about the possibilities and limitations of conventional statistical hypothesis testing approaches and criteria, as well as some contemporary multivariate statistical methods;
- learn to choose and apply in practice a set of appropriate statistical tests for their research questions
Expected Learning Outcomes
- Apply criteria for nominal data (cross-tables), parametric sample comparisons (Student t, ANOVA), nonparametric sample conparisons (Mann-Whitney, Wilcoxon, Kruskal-Wallis), inter-rater agreement (reliability, Cohen’s kappa), correlations (Guilford’s phi, pont-biserial, Spearman, Pearson).
- Apply general linear model to the data
- Be able to formulate good hypotheses
- Could prepare data for analysis
- Is able to handle missing data.
- Know basic theories of measurement
- Know data collection methods
- Know ethical guidelines for psychological research involving human participants or animals and for scientific publications.
- Know homothetic, hermeneutic, and idiographic approaches to research and explanation.
- Know how to assess reliability and validity
- Know non-experimental (correlational) designs
- Know specific non-experimental designs
- Know the principles of sampling
- Know the problem of ‘objectivity’ and the evolution of research paradigms in psychology
- Perform literature reviews
- Plan different experimental designs
- Use advanced modelling approaches
- Use mixed-methods approaches, such as repertoire grids, ultimate concerns technique
- Use principal components analysis and factor analysis
- Use quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods approaches
- Write up the results in APA style and visualize different types of data.
Course Contents
- 1. Human being as a challenge: Research paradigms in psychology
- 2. Planning your research: Theories, hypotheses, and potential pitfalls
- 3. Getting your data: Sources and samples
- 4. Psychological measurement: Psychophysics and Psychometrics
- 5. Research designs 1: Experiments
- 6. Research designs 2: Quasi-experimental and non-experimental designs
- 7. Quantitative methods 1: Testing statistical hypotheses
- 8. Quantitative methods 2: Comparing samples and looking for pairwise associations
- 9. Quantitative methods 3: General Linear Model
- 10. Quantitative methods 4: Multivariate exploratory and confirmatory methods
- 11. Qualitative Research
- 12. Mixed-Methods Research
Assessment Elements
- S: grade for activity at the seminars
- H: average grade for home assignments
- T: average score on tests given at the end of each module
- Final Exam
- S: grade for activity at the seminars
- H: average grade for home assignments
- T: average score on tests given at the end of each module
- Final Exam
Interim Assessment
- 2021/2022 3rd moduleCourseFinalScore = 0.6 * (0.5 * H + 0.3 * T + 0.2 * S) + 0.4 * FinalExamScore
Bibliography
Recommended Core Bibliography
- Frost, N. (2011). Qualitative Research Methods in Psychology : Combining Core Approaches. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill Education. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=382480
- Giles, D. (2002). Advanced Research Methods in Psychology. Hove, East Sussex: Routledge. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=548434
- Tabachnick, B. G., & Fidell, L. S. (2014). Using Multivariate Statistics: Pearson New International Edition (Vol. 6th ed). Harlow, Essex: Pearson. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=nlebk&AN=1418064
Recommended Additional Bibliography
- Robins, R. W., Fraley, R. C., & Krueger, R. F. (2007). Handbook of Research Methods in Personality Psychology. New York: The Guilford Press. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=211290