peepnklown
Frankernaut
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How about we get any form of government out of marriage – they should only recognize contracts.
Generalizing means something else, especially in a discussion related to psychological research. I suppose I could substitute "vague," but for me that tends to imply some degree of intentionality.By chance, is generic your favorite word?
If you feel he is generalizing, then you could simply say so.
YesThis argument about what is the "best" or "most objective" is going to differ to a degree based simply on opinion. No research measure is perfect because the people who construct them, evaluate them, and interpret them are not perfect. Interviews can tell you things that questionnaires cannot and questionnaires can tell you things that interviews cannot. What is the best tool depends largely upon the situation and the question for which you are looking to answer.
The key words being "may have" - proper interpretation of the MMPI (I believe) requires additional information about the patient, which would likely come from an interview of some sort - getting back to Tex's point that research gathered only through questionnaires can be suspect.
I do not share his opinion that questionnaires are necessarily "poor research tools" but it's also not true that they are necessarily the "best" tools for research. The best research tends to come from the use of many different methods, as they all have characteristic strengths, weaknesses and biases.
It always depends on what question you're trying answer. When CC says it's best for "this type of research" he's being much, much too generic.
Sure it's great when you have an instrument that has been studied, scrutinzed, tested, and retested over years - results obtained from such instruments allow a certain degree of confidence or at the very least confindence in knowing what the limitations of that instrument are.
But let's not forget that a primary reason questionnaires are used in research is because they can be cheap and easy to administer.
If I wanted to see how some independent variable (e.g. parental makeup) influenced GPA, would the "best, most objective" method be to ask them via questionnaire or would it be to try to obtain transcripts? I can tell you which would be cheap and easy.
When Nanny 911 does her assessments of child rearing, would we expect the more objective "poor parenting" data to come from a questionnaire administered to parents or from her observation of video? (There are positives and negatives to each approach.)
It's not difficult to imagine other contexts in which questionnaires are used not because they're a better tool, but because they're efficient. Let's say you want to measure something as abstract as gender identity in young children. It's doubtful you'll be able to devise a reliable instrument that can be administered directly to a child - that leaves what options? A questionnaire given to a parent? Is that the "best, most objective" means of getting the desired data, or would it be preferable to have the child interviewed by an expert who is blind to the parenting condition?
Point being, the distinction being discussed "Questionnaires are the best and most objective tools when doing research. Interview are the best tools to use when doing assessments" is bollocks. I can't really speak for psychological assessments, but as far as research is concerned, the best tool is a swiss army knife, as the method of choice will always be dependent on what it is you're trying to measure.
But this doesn't mitigate that it is the most objective way. What do you consider more effective?
This is not a general condemnation of all studies using unsupervised questionnaires for research. It is specific to the evidence trying to be passed off in this particular research.
"The Washington, D.C., City Council voted Tuesday to legalize gay marriage in the nation's capital, handing supporters a victory after a string of recent defeats in Maine, New York and New Jersey."
DC City Council votes to legalize gay marriage - Yahoo! News
Lets be extremely clear here.
The data CC was trying to pass off as legitimate dealt with the psychological profile of a homosexual couple and their children.
That is not something an unsupervised questionnaire can answer. No psychiatrist or psychotherapist would ever sign off on the feelings and behavior of any person based on an unsupervised questionnaire, period. It ignores the very essence of psychology and body language in determining the emotional state of a person.
This is not a general condemnation of all studies using unsupervised questionnaires for research. It is specific to the evidence trying to be passed off in this particular research.