College Axia Material
Appendix B Research Methods
List the advantages and disadvantages of the following research methods: Research Method Case Study Advantages A detailed description of a persons life and psychological problems. It describes the persons background, present circumstances, and symptoms. It may also speculate about why the problems developed, and it may describe the persons treatment. The clues offered by a case study may help a clinician better understand or treat the person under discussion. A case study may offer tentative support for a theory. Case studies may also show the value of new therapeutic techniques or unique applications of existing techniques, and they may offer opportunities to study unusual problems that do not occur often enough to permit a large number of observations. The degree to which events or characteristics vary with each other. The correlational method is a research procedure used to determine this corelationship between variables The correlational method has certain advantages over the case study. Because researchers measure their variables, observe many subjects, and apply statistical analyses, they are in a better position to generalize their correlations to people beyond the ones they have studied. A research procedure in which a variable is manipulated and the manipulations effect Disadvantages on Case studies are reported by biased observers; that is, by therapists who have a personal stake in seeing their treatments succeed. They must choose what to include in a case study, and their choices may at times be selfserving. Case studies also rely on subjective evidence. Case studies provide little basis for generalization. Events or treatments that seem important in one case may be of no help at all in efforts to understand or treat others.
Correlational Method
Although correlational studies allow researchers to describe the relationship between two variables, they do not explain the relationship. Scientists must decide whether the correlation they find in a given group of subjects accurately reflects a real correlation in the general population.
Experimental Method
Experimenters must give therapy to people who are suffering from a disorder and then observe
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another variable is observed. The manipulated variable is called the independent variable, and the variable being observed is called the dependent variable. To avoid this bias, experimenters can prevent participants from finding out which group they are in. This strategy is called a blind design because subjects are blind as to their assigned group.
whether they improve. An experiment may also be confounded by experimenter bias.
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