HSCI 307 Lecture 4: Study Designs & Measurements

• School: Simon Fraser University
• Department: Health Sciences
• Course: HSCI 307
• Professor: Rochelle Tucker

Document Summary

A preference for the natural science approach to research (positivism) The 4 main goal of quantitative research: measurement, establish causality, generalized of findings, replication, measurement. Data are used to understand or quantify social phenomena, concepts and their interactions in general: establishing causality. Researchers want to know what causes social phenomena. Prejudice, crime, class conflict, etc: generalization of findings to those not supplied. The goal is to come up with law like findings that apply to large numbers of people (external validity) The is a concern for researchers using cross-sectional and longitudinal design. Experimental model research is concerned more with internal validity than external validity: having a representative sample is essential for generation, replication. Provides a check for bias and routine errors. If the findings are not the same as those of the original study, the comparison provides reason to re-evaluate the methods and findings of the original study.