1. Chapter 13: Descriptive and Exploratory Research
Descriptive Exploratory Experimental
Describe Find Cause
Populations Relationship and Effect
Case study
Developmental Research
Normative Research
Qualitative research
Correlational, Predictive research

2. Descriptive/Exploratory Research
Purpose:
To describe a phenomenon
To explore factors that influence and interact with it
Descriptive Research
Document conditions, attitudes, or characteristics of individuals or groups of individuals

3. Descriptive Research Exploratory Research:
Focuses on the relationships among these factors
Descriptive and Exploratory Research:
May be combined, depending on the research question
Are considered nonexperimental or observational research (no data manipulation)

4. Retrospective and Prospective Research
Retrospective Research
Data have been collected in the past
Prospective Research
Data are collected in the present
(longitudinal studies)
Prospective research is more reliable than retrospective

5. Descriptive Research Purpose of descriptive studies:
Document the nature of existing variables
How they change overtime
Structured around a set of guiding questions
Descriptive data provide the basis for classifying data and for further questions

6. Case Studies
Purpose
In-depth description of an individual’s condition or responses to treatment
Can also focus on a group, institution, or other social unit
Case series- an expansion of a case study (several similar cases are reported)

7. Case Studies Most often:
Case studies emphasize unusual patient problems or diagnoses that present interesting clinical challenges
A case study is an intensive investigation designed to a analyze & understand factors important to the:

8. Case Studies Etiology, care, and outcome of subject’s:
Background, present status, and responses to intervention

9. Case Studies
It begins with a: full history, delineation problems, symptoms, and prior treatments, demographic and social factors that a relevant to the subject’s care and prognosis

10. Case Studies Literature should be cited to support treatment
Documentation of all interventions, subject’s responses, and and10 follow-up should be complete
Data could be quantitative or qualitative, or both

11. Case Studies Major Contributions: Information generates hypothesis
A thorough analysis of a single situation may lead to discovery of non obvious relationships
“Case law” may lead to a conceptual form

12. Case Studies
Provides an opportunity for understanding the totality of an individual’s experience
Limitations:
Limited generalizability from one case to another due to lack of control

13. Developmental Research
Involves the description of developmental change and the sequencing of behavior in people over time (Erickson, Piaget)
Methods used to document change:
1. Longitudinal study- follows a cohort of subjects over time

14. Developmental Research
Advantage of longitudinal method:
Ability to accumulate data through intensive documentation of growth and change in the same individuals
Disadvantages:
Money, long term commitment, attrition, and confounding variables

15. Developmental Research
2. Cross-Sectional Method- studies a stratified group of subjects at one-point in time
This method is used more often than longitudinal method because its efficiency as subjects are tested once at the same time

16. Developmental Research
Disadvantages of Cross-Sectional method:
Selection of subjects (results reflect extraneous factors)
“Cohort Effects” (effects are not age-specific but rather generation or time of birth)

17. Developmental Research
Provides valuable information for generating correlational or experimental hypothesis/es
Generates developmental theories

18. Normative Studies Purpose:
To describe typical or standard values for characteristics of a given population
Directed toward:
A specific age group, gender, occupation, culture, or disability

19. Normative Research Norms are usually expressed in terms of:
Mean (within a range of acceptable values)
Normal nerve conduction velocity of the Ulnar nerve is expressed as 57.5 meters/sec, with a normal range of 49.5 to 63.6 m/s

20. Normative Research
The “norm” is used as a basis for: Prescribing corrective interventions
Predicting future performance
Researchers must be aware of sampling biases

21. Qualitative Research Quantitative Methods: Qualitative Methods:
Based on ‘Logical positivism”
Concept/constructs can be measured and assigned numbers
Qualitative Methods:
Based on observing the “complex nature of humans”

22. Qualitative Research Purpose: To understand the patient’s perspective
To describe how individuals perceive their own experiences within a specific context
To seek an understanding why something occurs
(Phantom pain)

23. Qualitative Research Methods of Data collection:
Interviews
Observations
Data Analysis and Interpretation
Data are recorded in the narrative
Content analysis
Themes

24. Qualitative Research “Measurement error” Sampling Size
In terms of judgments not numerical equivalency
Sampling
Size

25. Exploratory Research
The systematic investigation of relationship among two or more variables
Purpose:
To describe relationships
To predict the effects of one variable on another
To test relationships that are supported by clinical theory

26. Exploratory Research
Exploratory research is guided by a set of hypotheses
Operational definition
Statistical testing

27. Exploratory Research
The foundation of exploratory research is the process of:
1. Correlation-
Measures the degree of association among variables
A function of covariation of the data (the extent that one variable varies directly or indirectly with another variable)

28. Exploratory Research
The strength of this relationship is measured by a correlation statistic
Pearson Correlation r (how close the correlation coefficient is to +1or -1
2. Regression-
Predicts the score on an outcome variable by knowing the values of other variables

29. Chapter 13
Now you know all about Descriptive and Exploratory Research