Acronym: a word made up of the initial letters of other words
Affirmative: asserting that the answer is “yes’’
Agents of action: people or institutions that take active steps to implement policies
or plans
Analysis technique: analysis is the process in which certain procedures, including
techniques, eg, descriptive statistic techniques are used to work through the data
that have been collected
Anonymity: not known by name
Archive: safe storage of documents and records
Assumption: a basic premise that we believe is true
Authenticity: genuineness
Bar chart: graph representing the frequency distribution of categorical data
Bias: prejudice or distortion
Bipolar: having two poles or extremes
Causality: that one thing leads to another — in our case, that the presence,
absence or change of one variable determines the presence, absence or change
of another variable
Coercion: forcing
Code of conduct: rule/s or law/s that regulate behaviour
Cognitive: knowing or mentally perceiving
Coherent: a research design that is coherent shows a unity of thought or purpose
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Confidentiality: can be defined as a researcher undertaking not to publicly link a
specific response or behaviour with a particular research participant
Consent: give permission
Consistency: giving consistent results
Control group: group that does not receive the treatment
Conventions: a general agreement regarding certain rules
Competency: the legal capacity to deal with a matter
Correlating: measuring the match between one thing and another
Correlate: an association between two or more variables, determined statistically
Correlation coefficient: index of the extent of the linear relationship between two
variables
Corroborated: confirmed
Classification: arrange in groups
Credibility: having a believable status
Criterion: principle or standard according to which something is judged
Critical approach: an approach to social science that emphasises the need to
uncover hidden processes and structures within society
Cumulative frequency: number of scores below (or above) a certain value
Data: information collected positivism
Deception: to be false, misleading or deceiving
Deduction: going from the general to the specific; using general principles to
suggest specific outcomes
Dependent variable: the variable that is influenced or changed; the effect
independent
Depersonalisation: losing one’s sense of identity
Descriptive statistics: mathematical techniques used to see underlying patterns of
data
Discrete: separate
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Domain: problem, area, field or discipline being researched
Double-barreled question: a question that contains two parts; in other words, a
question that is “two questions in one’’
Element: a unit from a defined population
Epistemology: a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of knowledge
Equivalence: equal in meaning
Evidence: facts indicating whether or not something is true
Ex post facto: after the fact. Ex post facto research deals with relationships between
two or more variables without any planned intervention.
Exhaustive: includes all possible responses
Experimental group: group that receives the treatment
External validity: extent to which results can be generalised to other populations or
circumstances
Feminist research: an approach advocating gender sensitivity in research, in
particular the acknowledgement of the role of women
Field research: collection of primary data in natural environments
Flexibility: flexibility is how adaptable the research process is
Format: style or way of organising information
Frequency distribution: table or graph indicating how observations are distributed
Frequency polygons: graph in which the frequencies of class intervals are
connected by straight lines
Grouped frequency table: frequency distribution table with a limited number of
categories
Hard copy: printed material produced by a computer
Hawthorne effect: the effect on participants of knowing that they are being
“researched’’
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