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6 - Building the Study

from Part I - From Idea to Reality: The Basics of Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 May 2023

By
Martin Schnuerch  and
Edgar Erdfelder
Edited by
Austin Lee Nichols  and
John Edlund
Austin Lee Nichols
Affiliation:
Central European University, Vienna
John Edlund
Affiliation:
Rochester Institute of Technology, New York
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Summary

This chapter discusses the key elements involved when building a study. Planning empirical studies presupposes a decision about whether the major goal of the study is confirmatory (i.e., tests of hypotheses) or exploratory in nature (i.e., development of hypotheses or estimation of effects). Focusing on confirmatory studies, we discuss problems involved in obtaining an appropriate sample, controlling internal and external validity when designing the study, and selecting statistical hypotheses that mirror the substantive hypotheses of interest. Building a study additionally involves decisions about the to-be-employed statistical test strategy, the sample size required by this strategy to render the study informative, and the most efficient way to achieve this so that study costs are minimized without compromising the validity of inferences. Finally, we point to the many advantages of study preregistration before data collection begins.

Keywords

Validity of StudiesHypothesis TestingEstimationSampling StrategiesPower AnalysisPreregistration
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Research Methods and Statistics for the Social and Behavioral Sciences
Volume 1: Building a Program of Research
 , pp. 103 - 124
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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