Summarising Quantitative Data

Research Methods

Recap – Ethical Issues

Answer the past exam question on ethical issues

Markscheme 1.

Although the psychologist would not be responsible for the behaviour of the children in the playground he might consider his responsibility if he saw that one of the children was being harmed.

Likely ethical issues include informed consent, right to withdraw, confidentiality or respect. Ways of dealing will depend on the issue selected.

There are different routes to achieving 4 marks depending on the ethical issue selected, but for full marks both the ethical issue and how the psychologist could have dealt with it should be clear.

Markscheme 2. There was no deception. Participants knew they would be watching a film

of a violent crime and that they would be interviewed about the content by a male police officer before they volunteered. This gave them the opportunity to give informed consent.

Students may argue that the psychologist did not follow BPS guidelines eg because they were not told of their right to withdraw.

1 mark for a very brief or slightly muddled answer, linking a relevant ethical issue to whether or not awareness was shown. Further marks for accurate elaboration/discussion.

Eg He told them what he was going to do. (1 mark) They could give informed consent because he told them what he was going to do. (2 marks) The participants were told that they would be watching a violent crime so they were able to give informed consent. (3 marks)

Learning Objectives

To define quantitative data

To outline how quantitative data can be summarised using different types of charts and graphs

To produce correctly labelled graphs/charts for given data

What is quantitative data?

How can quantitative data be summarised?

Histogram Bar chart Scattergram

Histogram No gaps in between bars

Used to present continuous data e.g. age

I remember it by saying “history is continuous, there are no gaps in history”

1901 1928

Bar chart Gaps between bars

Used with discrete data e.g. grades

I remember this by thinking of a bar crawl with separate bars that we visit and a short walk between each!

grade A

grade B

grade C

grade D

grade E

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

Which graph would be used to summarise the following data?

Gender

Weight

Time

Conditions (Experimental and Control conditions )

Age

Years (2007, 2008, 2009,...)

Blood group

Height

Behaviour categories

Temperature

Age groups (0-5, 6-10, 11-15)

Summary

Bar Chart Histogram

Non-continuous/discrete data Whole continuous data set

Columns represent frequencies, totals or percentages , ratios, mean scores, etc of different categories

Only frequencies

Gaps between the columns, as the columns represent discrete variables

No Gaps between columns

Scattergram

Looking at the relationship or correlation between two variables

E.g. the relationship between playing video games and aggression

To draw a graph, one variable is put on X-axis and the other variable is put on the Y axis.

Then each pair of scores is placed as a dot or cross where the two scores meet.

0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 301234

Y-Values

X values

Y v

alu

es

Your Task

Complete the gap-fill task on charts and graphs

Your Task

Summarise the given data into a graph/chart Make sure you give it a title and label the axes

correctly

Summary Q’s

What is quantitative data?

Give an example of continuous and discrete data

When would you use a histogram?

When would you use a bar chart?

When would you use a scattergram?

What type of correlation does this represent ?