1. Research Methods
If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it? Albert Einstein

2. Descriptive Research Basic Purpose: To observe and record behavior.
Case Studies
Surveys
Correlational Studies
Naturalistic Observation
Quasi-Experiment

3. Case Study & in-depth Interview
Advantages
Provides in-depth information on individuals.
Provides ideas for further research
Disadvantages
Cannot generalize the results to other individuals
Cannot draw cause & effect conclusions

4. Surveys Advantages Disadvantages
Can obtain descriptive information about large groups of people.
Disadvantages
May produce biased results because of atypical sample, overly positive answers, and/or inaccurate recall
Cannot draw cause & effect relationship
If we added a choice of "Football practice", we may find that football practice is someone's favorite "activity" at school, but it is not relevant to this particular question which asks "Which subject do you enjoy the most at school?"
Consistency is very important in writing the list of responses. All of the responses should be similar so that no single response stands out to the individual except the answer that is true for them. Consistency simply helps to ensure that you are not leading respondents to a particular answer by making that answer different from the others. It also makes it much easier for respondents to find the answer that is relevant to them.
In this example, the second choice is exactly the same as what we had before, but it is listed in minutes rather than hours making it inconsistent with the other answer choices. Listing answer choices in this way is very confusing for the respondent and makes it more likely that they will provide you with incorrect information.

5. Naturalistic Observation
Advantages
Provides information about people and animals in real-world settings.
Disadvantages
May be difficult to conduct research on infrequent behavior.
Cannot draw cause & effect relationship

6. Correlation Advantages Disadvantages
Can study behavior in real world settings.
Can determine whether two variables are related.
Disadvantages
Cannon draw cause & effect relationship
Correlation between smoking and lung cancer in US males, showing a 20-year time lag between increased smoking rates and increased incidence of lung cancer.

7. Experiment Advantages: Disadvantages:
Can control potentially confounding variables
Can draw cause & effect relationship
Disadvantages:
May be difficult to generalize to real world settings.
Cannot manipulate many variables.

8. Quasi-Experiment Advantages: Disadvantages:
Can study behavior in real world settings.
Can draw tentative cause & effect conclusions.
Disadvantages:
Cannot control confounding variables as well as in a controlled experiment.
Cause & effect relationships are not as firm as with the experimental method.
“Genie” after she was discovered.

9. Which Research Method ?
A director of a child welfare agency wants to understand the beliefs and feelings of people who were abused when they were children so that she can provide them with the support they need to prevent them from abusing their own children.

10. Which research Method?
A high school teacher wants to know if allowing his students to listen to their favorite music on their iPods during tests will cause their test scores to increase.

11. Which research Method?
A life insurance executive wants to know the percentage of people who obey traffic laws (i.e. wearing their seat belts or coming to a complete stop at a stop sign.)

12. Which research method ?
A political biographer wants to know the specific people and events that motivated Bill Clinton to enter politics and eventually run for president.

13. Which research Method ?
Ms. Stiles wants to explore the relationship between the number of hours spent sleeping and GPA.

14. Correlation Research Basic Purpose How Conducted
To detect naturally occurring relationships; to assess how well one variable predicts another.
How Conducted
Computing statistical association, sometimes among survey responses.

15. Experimental Research
Basic Purpose: To explore cause & effect.
Manipulate 1 or more factors and use random assignment to eliminate preexisting differences among subjects.
Experiment
Quasi Experiment