Glossary of Psychological Terms
Definitions of terms used in psychology, psychometric testing and occupational assessment, organised alphabetically.
Q-sort
A technique for assessing personality traits or attitudes in which a person is given a large number of descriptive statements — about themselves, or someone else — and sorts them into piles reflecting how strongly each statement applies.
Qualitative methods
Research methods concerned more with the depth, richness and meaning of the data collected than with strict experimental control, quantity of data, or the sophistication of statistical analysis. Participant observation and open-ended, unstructured interviews are among the most common examples in psychological research. Compare with quantitative methods.
Quantitative methods
Research methods concerned primarily with the precision and generalisability of the data collected, typically at the cost of some of the richness of content that qualitative methods can capture. The controlled experiment and structured questionnaire are the most common examples in psychological research.
Quartile
One of three points that divide a frequency distribution into four equal parts, each containing a quarter of the total scores.
Queuing
A term sometimes used to describe one way the mind handles sensory overload: by placing all but one of several competing stimuli “on hold” until the currently attended stimulus has been fully processed.
Quota sampling
A sampling method in which data is deliberately collected from each of several subgroups within a population, in proportions intended to reflect that population's known composition.
