Question

If you were able to choose a design (correlational, longitudinal, cross-sectional, quasi-experimental, or experimental) which design would you be interested in using for hypothetical research and what would your variables of interest (sex, age, SES, etc.) be in the design?

Answer 1

If I could design a study for testing hypothesis then I would consider the choice of design in tmrs of the research question first. Secondly, the choice would be determined by the variables involved and also my own training in a particular method. For instance, if the hypothesis is about the effect of gender on ones pro social behaviour then The research question calls for a method which would help to generate a valid finding and which would have high reliability. Thus, I would design the study using the experimental method. I would then define the sample in terms of the variable of sex. After operationally defining my independent variable as the instances where men are approached for help and instances where women are approached for help, I would then devise appropriate measures of dependent variable. In this case, both the frequency of pro social responses as well as the immediacy in term of time lapse between the request for help and the responses of help would be used to compare the data from Male and female participants. Moreover, as a control factor, Social variables such as the age of participants, socio economic status will be controlled so that they do not intervene with the relationship being measured.