Autor des Abschnitts: Danielle J. Navarro and David R. Foxcroft

Zusammenfassung

This chapter is not really meant to provide a comprehensive discussion of psychological research methods. It would require another volume just as long as this one to do justice to the topic. However, in real-life statistics and study design are so tightly intertwined that it is very handy to discuss some of the key topics. In this chapter, I have briefly discussed the following topics:

  • Einführung in das psychologische Messen: Was bedeutet es, ein theoretisches Konstrukt zu operationalisieren? Was bedeutet es, Variablen zu haben und Messungen vorzunehmen?

  • Skalenniveaus und Variablentypen: Remember that there are two different distinctions here. There is the difference between discrete and continuous data, and there is the difference between the four different scale types (nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio).

  • Reliability of a measurement: If I measure the “same” thing twice, should I expect to see the same result? Only if my measure is reliable. But what does it mean to talk about doing the “same” thing? Well, that is why we have different types of reliability. Make sure you remember what they are.

  • Terminologie: Prädiktoren und Kriteriumsvariablen: Welche Rolle spielen die Variablen in einer Analyse? Können Sie sich an den Unterschied zwischen Prädiktoren und Kriteriumsvariablen erinnern? Abhängige und unabhängige Variablen? usw.

  • Experimentelle und nicht-experimentelle Forschungsdesigns: Was macht ein Experiment zu einem Experiment? Ist es ein schöner weißer Laborkittel, oder hat es etwas mit der Kontrolle des Forschers über die Variablen zu tun?

  • Validität und ihre Bedrohungen: Misst Ihre Studie das, was sie messen soll? Was könnte schiefgehen? Und bilde ich mir das nur ein, oder gab es eine sehr lange Liste von Möglichkeiten, wie etwas schiefgehen kann?

All this should make clear to you that study design is a critical part of research methodology. I built this chapter from the classic little book by Campbell and Stanley (1963), but there are of course a large number of textbooks out there on research design. Spend a few minutes with your favourite search engine and you will find dozens.