Topic 1: Designing a Descriptive Study:

DESCRIPTIVE STUDY/RESEARCH – is the most basic type of study

 Seeks to answer “Who, What, Where, When, and How” question

 They serve as an important first step prior to predicting or explaining
events, attitudes or behaviors.

When is a descriptive study appropriate?

a. understand prevalence and trends.

– can be used to provide a quick snapshot of a phenomenon.
 Common among health researchers who want to know the
prevalence of a specific type of behavior. Example. Smoking, then
for a disease: cancer.
 This descriptive research allows for the assessment of the need for
intervention and can also be used to target intervention toward
those who received at highest risk. Descriptive research also helps
us understand those trenching behavior and attitudes. Example. The
few research center in the united states has been collecting and
sharing information about a variety of issues impacting American life
since early 1990s, they poll the public about the variety of issues
including global attitudes and views press and public policies. They
also track social and demographic trends relating it in the corporate
world most if not all businesses wanted to make profit. They should
track what are the current trends and how to maximized earning
profit form that.
 Can prompt further research on how and why behaviors and
attitude change.

b. Explore a phenomenon in depth

- allows in-depth examination of a topic.

- useful for examining a new phenomenon. Example. plagiarism

detection software is a relatively new invention

- used to determine if the patterns they found in their study fit

with existing research theories.

c. Examine a phenomenon in a different population – consider if patterns and

prevalence of behaviors and attitudes that are found in one population are similar in a
different population. Example. Filipino believe in superstitions are these behavior is
similar or different between a tagalog from a Cebuano population.
 METHODS FOR DESCRIPTIVE STUDIES

1. Survey research – involves asking people to report on their own attitudes and behavior.

Advantage – provide insight into how individuals see themselves and allows the researcher to
obtain information about people’s thoughts and feelings that cannot be directly observed.

Disadvantage – self- report may not be accurate because people are deceiving
themselves or trying to deceive the researcher.

 Self-reports may be inaccurate due to the Social Desirability bias. –

people do not always report their true thoughts, feelings, and
behavior. Instead, their responses may be influenced by the social
desirability bias in that they report what they think others want to
hear, or what they think is socially acceptable.
 There are ways to minimize or least measure participants’ bias
toward social desirability. – through Anonymity of responses.
 Many use the term survey when referring to questionnaires.
 Survey research refers to the method used to collect data, and both
interviews and questionnaires are tools used in survey research.

2. Interviews – interviews are one-on-one conversations directed by a researcher that can take place in
person, over the phone, or via e-mail.

- interviews are also subject to interviewer bias – interviewer Bias: the interviewer may
provide verbal or nonverbal cues that impact how the participant responds.

- another disadvantage to interviews is that they are quite time-consuming.

Advantage:

- The one-on-one nature of an interview may inspire the participant to take the research more
seriously.
- The interviewer can take note of not only the participant’s response but also the manner in
which the participant delivers the response.
- Face-to-face interviews are especially rich sources for observing nonverbal cues such as facial
expressions, hand gestures, pauses, and posture.
- Finally, interviews can allow for question clarification or follow-up questions, although this
depends on how structured the interviews.

STRUCTURED INTERVIEWS VS. UNSTRUCTURED INTERVIEW:

STRUCTURED INTERVIEWS- Are characterized by a predetermined list of questions that interviewers ask
all candidate. All questions, follow-up questions, and responses by the interviewer are determined
beforehand to ensure that all the participants have a very similar experience.
SEMI_STRUCTURED interviews – there is a set of core questions or topics that the interviewer will follow,
but the interviewer may prompt for more information, ask follow-up questions, or clarify questions as
the interviewer deems necessary.

UNSTRUCTURED INTERVIEW – are more like free-flowing conversation, taking different directions based
on the candidate.

3. QUESTIONNAIRES – questionnaires are measures in which the participants respond to questions on

paper or online.

- administrative is easily accomplished by handing out questionnaires in person, sending

them through the mail, or e-mailing or posting an online questionnaire.

- mailed questionnaires were once popular questionnaires, however, is notoriously low

and the cost of printing and mailing high.

- additionally, research suggest that online questionnaires yield results similar to those
completed in person, although the utility of online questionnaires may vary based on the topic studied.

OBSERATIONAL RESEARCH – it involves observing and recording of the humans or animals, it is a

primary collection data method where the researcher observes how people interact in a natural
setting. It allows the observer to see what their subjects really confronted with various choices or
situations, rather than predicting their behavior based on survey or focused group answers. Key
advantage of observation it focuses on what people will actually Do not what they say they do or what
they intend to do. One downside is that they are time consuming.

“It much more rely on watch what I do, not what I say.”

- One of the biggest and recurring issue in observational research is that it is prone to”

1. Observer bias – the observers pay closer attention to behavior that support their
expectations or interpret behaviors in ways that support their expectations or lose their focus
on the target behavior. Desired demographics can really be difficult to achieved.

* Blind- observer are not informed of the hypotheses in order to reduce observer bias. Meaning they
do not know what the hypotheses are they are not aware.

It is also wise to have more than one observer; this allows you to compare observation and test their
inter-rater reliability. They do not know other scores or core. In here we expect a very high correlation
or agreement in order to establish the reliability observation measure.

CODE SHEET – it is a piece of paper upon which the observer records his observation.

1. Narrative – a narrative account of what the participant did (detailed account of behaviors’ or
responses)
2. Checklist – a list of qualities or behaviors that are checked if present. Ex. Gender, age, specific
behavior occurred.

3. Duration – How long a behavior last. The time the participants showed the behavior of interest

4. Task Completion time – how long it takes to complete a task. The observer might also be record the
timing of behavior.

5. reaction time – how long it takes a participant to respond to a stimulus or the time a behavior was
triggered.

6. Latency – the time between stopping one task and beginning a new task.

7. rating scale – a numerical rating of a particular quality. To assess the intensity of a behavior. The
observers my code behavior that are live or recorded that allows for a higher accuracy because the
observer can examine the recording many times. If there are discrepancy between observer’s code, it
can be easily investigated by examining the recording. The decision to do a live observation or to
record the situation also depend on other decisions that researchers mixed. One of which is:

1. Covert versus Overt

 Covert- observations are made without the participants’ awareness. The participants
of the study are not aware. This are designed to capture the participants’ natural
spontaneous reaction to situation. But one of its down side it prompts a wide variety
of ethical complications as the participants of the study are not aware that they ae
being observe. Their behavior is recorded and analyzed hence an able to give consents
specially if it is being recorded.
 Overt – no attempts are made to hide the observation. There is awareness of the
participants. Concerned about this is that those participants who knows that they are
being observe may change their behavior. This is due to social desirability bias. So this
will greatly affect the reliability of the observation.

2. Natural Vs. Contrived

 Natural – occurs in natural environments or situation and do not involve interference by

anyone involved in the research. This is not a set up. One of its down side is the fact that the
researcher has no control over the situation, it is really time consuming, since a long time may
pass before the behavior of interest occurs.
 Contrived – the researcher sets up the situation and observes how participants or subjects
respond. The researcher has the control to trigger the situation.

3. Nonparticipants Vs. Participants

 Nonparticipant - the researcher or observer is not directly involved in the situation.

 Participants -the researcher or observer becomes actively involved in the situation. It may
involve a confederate who interact with participants in a brief task or situation. The more
involve the participant’s observation the greater the chance the participants will exhibit
 natural spontaneous behavior even in overt observations. For the reason the participant might
learn to adjust or adopt and with the personal relationship with the observer’s presence that
develop thrust and comfort. The disadvantages of the involvement by the researcher is that it
might become more spontaneous to both end and the researcher might lose their objectivity
as they become more entrench in the group.

ARCHIVAL METHOD - it involves describing data that existed before the time of the study. In other
words, the data were not generated as part of the study. One type of research method which will use
the existing or any existing primary data and that primary data will be use in order for us to arrive in a
conclusion or result of our existing research.

From other Books it says:

- It is a method of collecting data form sources that already exist.
- It is a type of research which involves seeking out and extracting evidence from archival
records.

ARCHIVE RECORDS- are the public or private documents that describe the activities of the individual,
institutions, government and other groups. These are the records that are available to the public.

COMPARISON OF SURVEY METHODS

Advantages:

 Versatility – it is designed to study almost in any social issues, it is applicable in almost all
(even on a simple issues).
 Efficiency – you can quickly assess the result of the study
 Generalizability – the result can be generalized from the representative sample to a larger
population without having to ask every single person from the sample.

Disadvantage:

 Validity of answer – there are times that the research instrument used is poorly design that
would result in an inaccurate answer.
 Representativeness – how the representative is chosen from the larger representative
population.
 Rigidity - the instrument not standardized.

COMPARISON OF OBSERVATIONAL METHODS

Advantages:
 Information more reliable and free from bias
 Easier to note effects environmental influences on specific outcomes
 Easier to observe certain groups.

Disadvantages:

 Observer need to be present for prolonged periods of time

 Slow, tedious, and expansive
  Fatigue
 Cognitive thought processes cannot be captured
 Observers need training’

COMPARISON OF ARCHIVAL METHODS

Advantages:

 Ability of huge amounts of data in one place

 Research approaches already available
 Easier to collect
 Historical comparisons or trend analysis
 Comparison with large population

Disadvantages:

 Difficult to access restricted documents

 Out of date
 May not provide complete picture of situation

VALIDITY IN DESCRIPTIVE STUDIES

♠ Descriptive Validity – is a research term that refers to the accuracy and objectivity of the
information gathered. In order for us to have a valid descriptive research the measure use
must be valid and for us to have a valid measure it also must be reliable. Because the
reliability of a certain studies surely consistency and stability of a measure or score.
♠ Validity – is the extent to which a measure actually measures what it is intended to measure.
 The truthfulness of a measure
 A test can be reliable and not be valid.
- This is how researcher took about the extent that result represent reality. It is important
because it determine what survey to use and help ensure the researcher are using questions.

WAYS TO MEASUREMENT VALIDITY

Measurement Validity – is the extent to which the measure in a study actually measure what
they intend to measure. It is about measuring what the researcher wants them to measure

 Internal Validity – is the extent to which you can demonstrate a casual link between
your variables. It is degree to which a researcher can draw accurate conclusion. If the
effect of the dependent variable is only due to the independent variable, then internal
validity is achive.
 External Validity – is the extent to which results of one study generalize to other
samples, settings and methods. The external validity of the study depends on whole
population of interest is and how the sample was obtain.

The importance of the external and internal validity varies base on the study design. In descriptive
research examine the Who, What, Where, When and How but that not examine the Why. In other
words, descriptive research does not seek to explain what cause a situation, feeling or behavior, purely
descriptive studies do not examine the relationship among variables. Because of this internal validity
is not a concern in a descriptive research, instead external validity is of primary concern in descriptive
research.

WAYS TO INCREASE VALIDITY:

 Increase measure reliability

 Question or code is clear.
 Assesses one idea at a time
 Adequately represent the construct of interest.

DEFINING THE POPULATION AND OBTAINING A SAMPLE:

-WHO OR WHAT IS THE POPULATION OF INTEREST?

 In a descriptive design study, the population of interest is based on a phenomenon.

 It can be identified based on the following:
1. Residency
2. Occupation
3. Gender
4. Age

How will you obtain a sample from a population?

Probability Sampling – it is a random sampling; it is a sampling method that uses random selection in
which all members of a particular population are subpopulation have an equal chance of being
selected.

1. Simple random sampling – is a type of probability sampling in which every member of the
population has an equal chance of being selected as sample.

Steps:
 Define the population
 Identify all the members of the population
 Randomly select a sample from the population
 Collect data from that sample.

2. Stratified random sampling – is a type of probability sampling representing the key

subpopulation based on their characteristics. Such as age, gender and ethnicity.

Steps:
 Define the population
 Identify the groups that you want to be proportionately represented in the
sample
  Identify all the members of the population and to which strata each member
they belong
 Divide the population based on which group you identified
 Determine the proportion of population represent each group, randomly
select a sample form each group of population
 Collect data from the sample.

3. Cluster sampling – is a type of probability sampling in which groups or clusters were randomly
selected instead of individuals.
Steps:
 Define the population
 Identify cluster within the population
 Randomly select a sample of cluster
 Collect the data.
Advantages of cluster sampling:
1. Time and cost efficient
2. High external validity
3. Practicality and ease.

HOW WILL YOU OBTAIN A SAMPLE FORM YOUR POPULATION:

1. CONVENIENCE SAMPLING – is a sampling strategy in which the researcher will choose their sample
based solely on the convenience.

How to Convenience sample:

1. Define the population

2. Decide where and when you will be able to find a sample form your population.
3. Collect the data.
Advantages of cluster sampling:
1. Quick, uncomplicated method of data collection
2. Inexpensive
3. Readily available sample

2. Quota Sampling – is a sampling that result in the sample representing the key subpopulations based
on the characteristics such as age, gender, and ethnicity.

Steps:
 Define the population
 Identify the groups that you want to be proportionately represent in your
sample.
 Determine the proportion of approximate proportion of the population
represented by each group
  Decide where and when you will b able to find a sample of the groups you
identified.
 Collect data form each group in proportions equal to those of the population.

3. Maximum variation sampling – is a sampling strategy in which the researcher seeks out the full
range of extremes in the population.

Steps:
 Define the population
 Identify the extremes in the populations
 Seek out members of the population that represent various extremes as well
as those who represent the average.
 Collect data.

4. Snowball Sampling – is a sampling strategy in which participants recruit other to be part of the
sample.

Steps:
 Define the population
 Identify the extremes in the populations
 Seek out members of the population that represent various extremes as well
as those who represent the average.
 Collect data.

Ways to integrate descriptive research with other types of research designs.

- It goes hand in hand with correlational research in which one topic can collect other variables
that also need to be analyzed.