Quasi-Experimental Design in Psychology Topic Research

After choosing a topic and forming a research question and hypothesis, researchers need to decide what type of research design they want to use. As you have learned during class, a researcher could use many different methods. It can be helpful to think through the different options prior to determining what method to use. It is important to think of what is most needed from your study results when choosing what method to use. For example, is internal validity or external validity more important? As all methodologies have limitations, what are limitations that you can “live with” in regards to studying your research question? A researcher who wants to prioritize results that generalize to real world settings would likely want to prioritize strong external validity and be able to “live with” limitations to internal validity. A researcher who wants to be able to make strong causal inferences from the results would likely want to prioritize strong internal validity and be able to “live with” limitations to external validity.
Think of a psychology topic of interest to you that involves looking for a relationship between two variables, such as exercise and emotional well-being OR emotional intelligence and relationship satisfaction. Then, think of the five main research designs learned in class (single case, observational, survey, quasi-experimental, single factor experimental design) and please respond to the following:
Discuss the two variables that could be studied to see if there is a relationship between them.
State a research question and hypothesis that could be used with this study.
Of the research designs learned in class, which would you choose to study a relationship between these two variables?
Explain you could use this chosen method to study your topic.
Discuss strengths/limitations of the chosen method, and describe how these informed your choice to use this method instead of a different research method.