Quantitative Research Methods and Individual Differences

This module advances the concepts of quantitative research methods that were introduced to you at Level 4 using the study of individual differences. You will be introduced to traditional areas and prominent thinkers in the areas of personality and intelligence theory, before moving onto more specific areas of psychology where the differences between individuals has been researched. Alongside this, you will learn how to design and conduct appropriate experimental and quasi-experimental investigations of a range of individual differences variables. You will also be introduced to elementary scale development for the testing of individual differences within psychology.

On successful completion of this module, you will be able to:

• Demonstrate the ability to design, conduct and report psychological research using quantitative methods.
• Demonstrate an appreciation of the complexity of measuring individual differences.
• Demonstrate the appropriate use of quantitative analysis techniques in the study of individual differences

This module will examine how individual differences have been researched in psychology, and focus upon the quantitative research methods appropriate to examining this in order to help students to achieve the module learning outcomes. 

Topics covered may include: 

• Areas of individual differences: Personality (e.g., Psychodynamic Approaches, State/Trait Theories, etc.), Intelligence (e.g., Two-Factor Theory, Sternberg, Gardner, etc), Cognitive Style, Biological Differences, Emotion, Mood, Belief, etc.
• Quantitative analysis methods: One-Way Independent ANOVA, Factorial Independent Measures ANOVA, Kruskal-Wallis Test, One-way Repeated Measures ANOVA, Factorial Repeated Measures ANOVA, Friedman’s ANOVA, Factorial Mixed ANOVA, Linear Regression, Multiple Regression. 
• Basic scale development: Methods of systematic review and how this relates to scale development, measures of reliability and validity, wording and item creation, data reduction, reliability analyses (e.g., Cronbach’s Alpha).