Independent Variable or IV (Predictor variable) – Those variables which are manipulated by the experimenter.
Dependent Variable or DV (Criterion variable) – Those variables which are measured.
A hypothesis (hypotheses) is a working theory or proposition that expresses expectations related to the study's goals and defines the anticipated relationship between two (or more) variables.
The 2X3 factorial design includes two factors or two independent variables with the first factor having two levels and the second factor having three levels.
In this experiment, we will study how the surroundings and amount of sleep influence exam performance of children. The independent variables will be the surroundings and the amount of sleep. Surroundings will include two levels - quiet surroundings and noisy surroundings. The amount of sleep will have three levels - 4 hours, 6 hours and 8 hours. The dependent variable in this experiment will be exam performance of children. The impact of independent variables on the dependent variable will be studied. This is an example of a 2X3 factorial design model where there are two factors with one of them having two levels and the other having three levels.
Here is the description of the factorial design in tabular form:
The null hypothesis for this research is that there will be no significant impact of the surroundings and amount of sleep on the exam performance of children.
The alternative hypothesis is that there will be a significant impact of the surroundings and amount of sleep on the exam performance of children. The direction of the alternative hypothesis can be positive or negative.
We would be using a quantitative method because the sample size would be large involving more subjects and enabling generalisation of findings. As a researcher, it would make my work easier as it is reliable and accurate.
For the present study, the sample size will be 1000 children from different schools of Delhi, India.
Informed consent will be obtained. The sample will be randomly selected.
This research is a hypothetical one. The dependent variable i.e. the exam performance of children can be high or low. We can assume that quiet surroundings and more amount of sleep, better will be the exam performance, and noisy surroundings and lesser amount of sleep, lower will be the exam performance of children. This is one of the examples of the interaction which we may see in this experiment.
Getting enough sleep is essential for performing at your best, and a good sleep is especially important during exam time. Getting proper sleep is crucial during exams because it helps students concentrate, remember, and recall information more effectively. Sleep is extremely vital for memory. Undisturbed sleep of six to eight hours is necessary for overall well-being, particularly during exams when a child's mind is pushed to its limits by having to focus, revise, remember, or reproduce. A good night's sleep is important for improving exam results.
Q 2. “The term Positivism dominates the quantitative–qualitative debate”. Examine the statement in light with the debates on the quantitative and qualitative approaches to research.
Positivism is the idea that scientific research can focus on only certain objects or events that can be directly observed. Metaphysical speculations are deliberately avoided by the positivist. Both the British empiricists and the French sensationalists believed that all knowledge is gained by experience and that there are no inherent ideas. They said that all knowledge, including moral knowledge, was drawn from personal experience.
The only thing we can be assured of, according to Comte, is what is socially observable—that is, sense experiences that can be shared with others. Science's data are publicly accessible and can be relied. Scientific laws, for example, are statements about how observational events differ together, and once established, they can be experienced by anyone who is involved. Positivism was identified after Comte's emphasis on associating knowledge with empirical observations. The belief that science can only look at things that can be directly experienced. That meant publicly witnessed events or overt actions for Comte.
Qualitative and quantitative research are often depicted as diametrically opposed and as distinct as they can be. The aim of qualitative research is to describe the qualities (or characteristics) of data. The importance of quantitative research in psychology cannot be underestimated. In reality, quantification characterizes most psychology more accurately than the discipline's subject matter. The divide between qualitative and quantitative research is more apparent than real.
Quantitative research is a form of research that uses statistical, logical, and mathematical techniques to produce numerical data and hard facts. Quantitative research focuses on quantifying (or assigning numbers to) variables. Quantitative research requires gathering and evaluating numerical data objectively in order to explain, predict, or monitor variables of interest. The process of measurement is crucial to quantitative research as it establishes the connection between empirical observation and mathematical representation of quantitative relationships. Research is used to put a hypothesis to test to determine if it should be accepted or rejected. Quantitative research is often defined as being established on positivism, which is the foundation of the ‘hard' sciences including physics and chemistry.
Qualitative research is a method of inquiry that aims to understand how people think and feel in the human and social sciences. Qualitative research involves gathering information and understanding about a problem situation. It is an unstructured, exploratory research method for studying highly complex phenomena that quantitative research cannot explain. It does, however, produce ideas or hypotheses for quantitative research in the future. On the basis of observation and interpretation, qualitative research is used to obtain an in-depth understanding of human behaviour, experience, attitudes, intentions, and motives in order to determine how people think and feel. It is a form of research in which the investigator gives greater weight to the participants' opinions. Qualitative analysis includes case studies, grounded theory, ethnography, history, and phenomenology. The goal of qualitative research is to describe and categorize the characteristics of data. Qualitative researchers try to avoid some of the flaws in positivism by focusing on data gathered by more natural means.
The debate between quantitative and qualitative methods is dominated by the term positivism. Positivism is an epistemological perspective. The analysis of, or theory of, knowledge is known as epistemology. It is concerned with knowledge methodology (how we go about learning things) and knowledge validation (the value of what we learn).
Positivism is the third main epistemological approach, clearly opposing theism and metaphysics as methods of knowledge acquisition. Auguste Comte's philosophy in the nineteenth century in France was the first to formulate positivism. In the valid accumulation of knowledge, he emphasized the significance of observable evidence. It's just a short step from there to understanding how positivism underpins the scientific method in general. More specifically, positivism is at the heart of so-called scientific psychology in this sense.
It is important to note that positivism refers to both quantitative and qualitative research methods. It is not solely the domain of quantitative psychology. Qualitative researchers often overlook positivism as their epistemological foundation.
Silverman (1997) makes a variety of observations that are at odds with the orthodox positivist interpretation of qualitative research.
Unfortunately, the word "positivism" is a highly ambiguous and emotive one. Most quantitative researchers will argue that their goal is to generate a collection of cumulative, theoretically specified generalisations derived from the critical sifting of data, rather than a science of laws. As a result, very few scholars could be seen who equated the social and natural worlds, or who claimed that research could be conducted without the use of theories.
While positivism emphasises the importance of observation, the end-point or intent of the observation is debatable. The real issue with positivism is that it works as if there are unchanging, eternal truths to be discovered. That is, consistent, legitimate, and unchanging values govern our perceptions of the universe.
There were many important psychologists who worked on the basis of positivist sayings and the search for the laws of human behaviour in particular. These individuals belonged to the
Behaviourist School of Psychology, which influenced much of psychology from the 1920s to the
1960s and beyond. Almost all they did reeked of a desire to discover universal psychological laws. First and foremost, they argued for the fundamental positivist stance that knowledge is obtained by observation. As a result, they emphasised the importance of studying the connections between the incoming stimulus and the outgoing response in psychology. There was no point in studying something that couldn't be directly observed and examined.
The positivist model promotes a scientific, structured approach to science, which is conducive to the application of quantitative methods. Researchers who use a quantitative analytical approach typically focus on the confirmatory stages of the research cycle, such as formulating a hypothesis and collecting numerical data to test it. In contrast to qualitative methodology, which is typically more concerned with explaining experiences, emphasising context, and exploring the essence of a problem, quantitative methodology seeks to assess, calculate, or discover the magnitude of a phenomenon. The qualitative analytical approach is perceived as being more unstructured, with elements of the research process subject to change as events unfold. Quantitative methods, like surveys, structured questionnaires, and official statistics, are preferred by positivists because they are reliable and representative. In order to get a broad picture of society, the positivist tradition emphasises the importance of conducting quantitative studies, such as large-scale surveys.
Some critics of popular psychology believe that positivism is synonymous with statistical analysis. However, some of the most influential figures of positivistic psychology, such as Skinner, had little or no interest in statistics and did not include them in their research. Whether or not statistics are used does not imply positivism. Similarly, theoretical empiricism – essentially the compilation and evaluation of data for their own sake – has little to do with positivism, which is more concerned with understanding the world than with data accumulation.
Both quantitative and qualitative approaches are focused on positivism, and several qualitative researchers have used "positivist principles" to analyze messy data. Qualitative scholars, on the other hand, are far more likely to embrace the post-positivist viewpoint that whatever truth is being observed, our understanding of it can only ever be approximate and never precise. Quantitative researchers' activities illustrate the belief that, amid all the difficulties, there is a truth that can be captured. They would consider language data to be representative of reality, while the qualitative researcher would believe that language is incapable of doing so. Quantitative researchers often view reality as a process of causes and effects, and they often tend to regard research as the pursuit of generalisable knowledge. We may use qualitative on the ground where quantitative is dominant in positivism. The qualitative purpose will aid in determining the findings' reliability and validity.
Positivism is a philosophical ideology that differs from theism (religious foundation of truth) and metaphysics (knowledge comes from reflecting on issues) in terms of how knowledge can be acquired. Positivism demanded that knowledge be grounded in empiricist principles. However, it came to be associated with approaches that were both crude and quantifiable. Qualitative researchers often lack their positivism affiliation.
In the philosophy of science, positivism has long been the dominant viewpoint. The majority of quantitative researchers use positivism as their epistemological foundation. Positivism is based on quantifiable data that can be analysed statistically. However, it can be argued that certain qualitative research procedures represent positivist perspectives.
References
D. Brett King, W. D. (2013). A history of Psychology ideas & context . Boston: Pearson.
Herganhahn, B. (n.d.). An introduction to the history of psychology .
Howitt, D., & Cramer, D. (2017). Research methods in psychology. Pearson.
Mertens, D. M. (2010). Research and Evaluation in Education and Psychology . Los Angeles :
SAGE.
Omar Gelo, D. B. (2008). Quantitative and Qualitative Research: Beyond the Debate. Springer Link.
by
himaghnabaruagmailcom (student)
