Question

What are the most common threats found in research in real life situations?

Explain quantitative and qualitative research. Give an example.

Answer 1

Real-life research situations are involved in naturalistic observation which refers to a way of conducting research that involves observing participants in their regular or natural environment. By observing the way in which people react to some stimuli and situations, in reality, psychologists can obtain a better understanding of why and how individuals respond. This method poses a lot of threat and has certain disadvantages:

• In realistic settings, individuals may act in a different way when they have the knowledge that they are getting observed. At times individuals attempt to act in a more socially-accepted manner which they would not do if they knew they were not being observed.

• They may start to act in a particular way so as to obey what they believe the observer is expecting to see. Because of the demand characteristics, subjects may change their actions to behave in accordance with the view of the researcher.

• Diverse researchers may reach dissimilar results or interpretations from the from one observed action.

Qualitative research examines things in the subject’s natural environment, trying to interpret and understand the phenomena with respect to the ways in which people give them meanings. It refers to empirical research in which the data is not represented in the form of figures and numbers. Ethnography is one such method of research wherein a researcher observes the target population from the viewpoint of the participants of the study.

Quantitative research tries to create general rules of phenomenon and actions through several contexts. It is used utilized to check theory and then finally reject or accept it. Experiments generally produce quantitative results through controlled observations as well as questionnaires.