E-Book Overview
This book expertly guides the reader through all stages involved in undertaking quantitative psychological research, from accessing the relevant literature, through designing and conducting a study, analysing and interpreting data, and finally reporting the research. This third edition includes two new chapters - on preliminary checking of data and allowing for additional variables when comparing the means of different conditions - and expands on original topics such as choosing sample sizes and how to test for mediation effects. It also contains increased coverage of tests and further detail of techniques and terms which psychologists will meet when working with those in the medical professions. As the chapters focus on choosing appropriate statistical tests and how to interpret and report them (rather than the detailed calculations, which appear in appendices), the reader is able to gain an understanding of a test without being interrupted by the need to understand the complex mathematics behind it. In addition, for the first time, the book is accompanied by an online bank of multiple choice questions. The book helps readers to: Locate reports of relevant existing research Design research while adhering to ethical principles Identify various methods which can be used to ask questions or observe behaviour Choose appropriate samples Display and analyse findings numerically and graphically to test hypotheses Report psychological research in a variety of ways. As such, the book is suitable for psychology students and professionals at all levels, and is particularly useful to those working in Health and Clinical Psychology.
E-Book Content
Quantitative Psychological Research Quantitative Psychological Research THE COMPLETE STUDENT’S COMPANION, 3rd EDITION David Clark-Carter Psychology Department, Staffordshire University First published 2010 by Psychology Press 27 Church Road, Hove, East Sussex BN3 2FA Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Psychology Press 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. Psychology Press is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business Copyright © 2010 Psychology Press Cover design by Lisa Dynan All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Clark-Carter, David. Quantitative psychological research : a student’s handbook / David Clark-Carter. – 3rd ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Psychology—Research—Methodology—Textbooks. I. Title. BF76.5.C53 2009 150.72—dc22 2009006100 ISBN 0-203-87070-0 Master e-book ISBN ISBN: 978–1–84169–690–4 (hbk) ISBN: 978–1–84169–691–1 (pbk) To Anne, Tim and Rebecca Contents Detailed contents of chapters Preface Part 1 Introduction 1 The methods used in psychological research Part 2 Choice of topic, measures and research design 2 The preliminary stages of research 3 Variables and the validity of research designs 4 Research designs and their internal validity Part 3 Methods 5 Asking questions I: Interviews and surveys 6 Asking questions II: Measuring attitudes and meaning 7 Observation and content analysis Part 4 Data and analysis 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Scales of measurement Summarising an