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Case Control Design

The document outlines various research designs including case-control, developmental, cross-sectional, and longitudinal studies, highlighting their advantages and limitations. It discusses ethical issues in quantitative research, focusing on reliability and validity of measurements, as well as ethical considerations for human and animal participants. Additionally, it emphasizes the importance of informed consent, minimizing harm, and ensuring humane treatment in research.

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2 views

Case Control Design

The document outlines various research designs including case-control, developmental, cross-sectional, and longitudinal studies, highlighting their advantages and limitations. It discusses ethical issues in quantitative research, focusing on reliability and validity of measurements, as well as ethical considerations for human and animal participants. Additionally, it emphasizes the importance of informed consent, minimizing harm, and ensuring humane treatment in research.

Uploaded by

jhanvi.rs
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Case Control Design

It is a retrospective observational study comparing individuals with a


specific condition (cases) to those without it (controls) to identify potential
risk factors or causes. Key feature for this case control design looks
backward from outcome to exposure. (unlike cohort studies, which follows
individuals forward in time)

- Investigating rare diseases or conditions where randomised trials


are impractical or unethical
- Cases refers to individuals with disease or outcome of interest Eg:
patients diagnosed with lung cancer
- Controls refers to individual without the disease but otherwise very
similar to cases eg; healthy individuals matched by age, gender
and lifestyle.
- Exposure assessment- it refers to historical data collected via
medical records, surveys or interviews eg: Comparing smoking
history between lung cancer patients and control groups

Steps in conducting case control study

- Define the research question


- Select the cases
- Select the controls
- Measure the exposure
- Analyse the data
- Eg: does smoking increase the chance of lung cancer

Case control research designs

- are efficient for rare diseases


- are cost-effective and quicker than longitudinal studies
- Useful for multiple exposures

Limitations of case-control design

- Recall bias- Cases may remember exposures differently than


controls
- Selection bias- If controls are not representative this causes a
limitation for the study to continue
- We cannot establish causality
- We can only establish association
- Temporal ambiguity is hard to confirm if exposure preceded the
disease
- To identify at least 3 rare disease as of march 2025

Developmental research design


- We use developmental research design to examine the changes
overtime which are related to growth, aging and intervention effects
- We particularly use this design in psychology, education and
medicine
- It compares different groups (age groups) at a single time point eg:
we often test memory performance in 20,40 and 60 y/o males in
2024

The advantage for this research design is that

- They are quick, feasible and inexpensive


- We use these designs in identifying age related differences

Limitation for this research design

- It cannot track individual changes


- Eg: Cohort effects-The cohort effects may confound results
- It only shows differences and not the entire development

Cross-sectional design

- It compares different groups (age groups) at a single time point

Same pros and cons

Longitudinal research design

- Here we follow the same group over an extended period of time eg:
if psychologists wish to track IQ scores of children from age 5-27

Advantages

- Here we are able to understand developmental trend


- It controls the individual differences

Disadvantages

- It is time consuming and expensive design


- It has high attrition rate
- It has cohort effects

Ethical issues in quantitative research

- Reliability and validity of psychological measurements


- Reliability in simple terms refers to trustworthiness across time
- Pilot research is done to check the feasibility of the research
- Reliability is the consistency of a measure overtime or across
conditions

Types of reliability

- Test-retest reliability- Consistency across different time frame


- Inter- rater reliability- it is an agreement between different raters
(less likely to be seen in quants research)
- Internal consistency – We often measure this with thornback alpha
Consistency among items in a test

Parallel forms of reliability

16 PF test- culture fair test

- Parallel forms reliability


- Odd-even reliability /Split-half reliability

Reliability is the consistency of measure overtime or across conditions

Limitations of reliability

- If the items (qs) in a test are poorly constructed it poses a threat to


compute reliability
- Environmental fluctuations
- Participant fatigue or changes in mood

Validity- The extent to which the test measures what it claims to measure

Types of validity

Content validity- Does the test cover the full domain?

 Focuses on whether the test items adequately represent all relevant


aspects or domains of the construct being measured.

Construct validity- does it measure the theoretical construct

Construct validity assesses whether a test measures the intended


concept, while content validity evaluates if the test adequately covers all
aspects of that concept.

Criterion validity – It measure all the possible criterions around the test
(psychometric test), It is further subdivided into:

 Concurrent validity- Concurrent validity correlates with existing


measures
 Predictive validity- It predicts future outcomes

Limitations to validity

- If the test is having poor operational definitions, it is highly likely


that it will impact the overall validity.
- If the test has experimental bias the overall validity of the test is
difficult to compute
- If the psychometrician commits sampling errors, The overall validity
of the test is influenced
Is validity or reliability independent or interdependant

Reliability is related to validity but validity not to reliability. Reliability


refers to how the study aids the same result every time it is done, the
result being good or not. But validity refers to the accuracy, as in the
study accurately measures what it aims to measure.

Ethical issues in psychological research

Ethical issues with Human participants

- Informed consent- Participant must voluntarily agree to participate


after being fully informed about the study’s purpose, procedure, risk
and benefits
- Deception In research- deliberately misleading participants about
the true purpose or procedure of the study
- Confidentiality and anonymity- Protecting participants identity and
data, where confidentiality is linked to a data which is kept private.
The identities are revealed in this. Anonymity means no identifying
information was collected.
- Right to withdraw- participants can leave the study at anytime
without penalty
- Minimizing harm- The researcher must avoid physical, psychological
or emotional harm to the participants

Ethical issues in Animal participants

- Justification- the principal states that in animal research we must


have a clear scientific purpose with potential benefits and
outweighing harm
- Humane treatment- The principal suggests that animals must
experience minimal pain and distress
- Replacement, reduction and refinement- also known as the principal
of 3R’s- In replacement we use alternatives to animals when
possible
Reduction means minimizing the number of animals used
Refinement means to modify the procedures to reduce the suffering.

Correlation
10-30- poor
31-65- moderate
65-99- strong

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