Student ID Number : 13498962 Student Name : Edward Connolly Tutor Name : Jennifer Elizabeth Keane Date : 4th of November EA1 Research Methods Assignment : 1 Answers : (1) [A] The Null Hypothesis for this experiment is that there is no significant difference in results depending on what type of school the students attend, in regards to the level of racism in secondary schools. (1) [B] The Alternate Hypothesis for this experiment is that there is a difference in the level of racism of secondary school students, depending on what type of school they attend. (2) IV - The Level of Racism of the student DV- The type of school the students attend (3) [A] Advantages of Angela using Survey Approach : -It allows her to gain a large amount of information in a short period of time. -It is a cheap way of gathering many perspectives/opinions. -It is not time consuming. -It provides options for the subject to choose from to avoid confusion. -It allows her to ask several questions within one survey. -The surveys are not time consuming for the surveyor. -It can be developed in less time than other data-collection methods. -Can be administered remotely via online, mobile devices, mail, email, kiosk, or telephone. -A broad range of data can be collected (e.g., attitudes, opinions, beliefs, values, behavior, factual). (3) [B] Disadvantages of using a survey approach : -Results gathered in a group may be biased as some participants answers may be influenced by another participants. -Data errors due to question non-responses may exist. The number of respondents who choose to respond to a survey question may be different from those who chose not to respond, creating bias. -None of the options may given in the survey may apply to the participants answer/opinion. -Respondents may not feel comfortable providing answers that present themselves in a unfavorable manor. -Participants may answer questions without thinking properly because of the multiple choice answers already given. -Respondents may not be fully aware of their reasons for any given answer because of lack of memory on the subject. -’Yes’ or ‘no’ answer options can often cause problems. Respondents may answer ”no” if the option “only once” is not available. -Customized surveys can run the risk of containing certain types of errors. (3)[C] I would suggest the use of quantitative research for this research considering the fact that many students (hundreds if not thousands) are doing the survey. This allows for many peoples opinions and view to be recorded in a short space of time and therefore, providing an general overview of a large sample of peoples answers.It is ideal to have a large number of participants because this gives analysis more statistical power. Advantages : -easier to compile the data onto a chart or graph because of the numbers that are made available -research can be conducted on a large scale and gives a lot more information as far as value and statistics. Disadvantages : -usually more costly than using qualitative research. -research must be conducted on a huge portion of the people. -ignorance of study content is much more likely (4) [A] A demand characteristic is a subtle cue (small hint or clue) that makes participants aware of what the experimenter expects to find or how participants are expected to behave in the experiment. Demand characteristics can change the outcome of an experiment because participants will often cahnge their behavior to conform to the experimenters expectations. An example of this case might be if an experimenter might gives off hints or cues that might make the participant believe that a particular outcome or behavior is expected. Researchers normally rely on a number of different strategies to minimize the impact of demand characteristics. Deception is one of the more common approaches. This involves telling participants that the study is looking into one thing when its actually looking at something else altogether. [B] Once the students have skimmed through the questions and realised that the research is based on racism, they may alter their answers to conform with being anti racist and perhaps change their honest opinion to conform with the survey. All of these students are also teenagers, and certain rappores between different races may be present in the school, which could also change the results of particular students. Other students may be dissinterested or may attempt to make a flaw of the survey by intentionally answering questions which would result in extreme statistics in their personal survey. Demand characteristics might also motivate participants to behave in ways that they think are socially desirable. [C] Angelas aim in this case is to get a fair result from her survey. To avoid demand characteristics in this case, she may have to alter her survey. One method may be to announce to the students in each case, that the survey is to do with something completely different so that the students are not anticipating their questions. However in this case, most questions if not all, are based on racism, and this may incur a problem. To avoid this, extra questions which have no relavance to the actual study may be added, so the mindframe of each particpant is confused and they are not quite sure in regards to the topic and aim of the experiment/research. (5) [A] It is important to be aware of ethical issues in research because it ensures that the particpant is respected and is caused no harm. They are also important because its seen as a sign of respect for other researchers and those who will use the research in the future.This a professional requirement particularly in some disciplines and failure to do so may result in disciplinary procedures which clearly shows us how important they are to research.If a research fails to research ethically, this could be embarrassing or result in research (or the researcher) being dismissed or rejected by the research community. [B] Some of the students may have experienced racism in the past. So angela has to assure the students are aware that they can stop the survey at any time and they do not have to participate if they dont want to. [C]She can make the students aware of the topic previous to the survey, get them to sign a consent form in order to assure them that they can pull out of the survey at any time and that they do not have to answer particaular questions if they do not feel like it. [D] Angela could reference from : Eliminating Racism in the Classroom by Richard Morgan, DYouville College
Posted on: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 14:45:09 +0000
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