Analysis, limits and ethics

Data can be analysed in two ways:

• Quantitative: turning behaviour into numbers (scores, ratings) and using statistics, as in an intelligence test.
• Qualitative: working with words and stories, such as interview notes, using narrative or content analysis to find themes. Some experiences, such as how much a mother loves her child, cannot sensibly be put into numbers.
• The two are complementary, not rivals: many studies use both.

Limitations of psychological enquiry:

• No true zero point. A ruler starts at zero, but no person has zero intelligence, zero personality or zero interest, so psychological scores are relative, not absolute.
• Tools tied to context. A test built for city children who read English may not work fairly for rural children or speakers of other languages without changes; findings from one country may not apply in another.
• Subjective interpretation. Qualitative data is read through the researcher's own experience; two researchers may see the same interview differently.

Ethics. Research must respect the people who take part:

• Voluntary participation: nobody is forced or pressured into a study.
• Informed consent: before agreeing, people are told what will happen to them.
• Debriefing: afterwards they are told the true purpose and how their data will be used, and any worry caused is removed, so they leave in the same state of mind they came in. This matters most when a study had to keep its purpose hidden at first.
• Sharing results with participants.
• Confidentiality: results are shared privately and data sources are never revealed. Posting someone's test score publicly would be a serious breach.