What is an aim?
A general statement of what the researcher intends to investigate
What is a confounding variable?
a factor other than the
... [Show More] independent variable that might produce an effect in an experiment
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What does debriefing mean?
To inform the participants of the true nature of the study and the restore them to the same state as they were beforehand. Avoids ethical issues
what is a DV?
The variable you measure
What is an ethical issue?
Concern questions of right of wrong. Does the benefits of the experiment outweigh the negatives
What is an experiment?
A research method where a casual conclusions can be drawn because of a manipulated on an IV to observe the effect on the DV
What is a hypothesis?
A hypothesis is a statement that can be tested
What is an IV?
variable that is manipulated
What does the term operationalise mean?
Ensuring that the variables are in a form that can be easily tested
What is a standardised procedures?
procedures that are the same for all ppts in order to be able to repeat the study.
What is valid consent?
ppts must be given comprehensive information concerning the nature and purpose of the research and their role in it, in order that they can make an informed decision about whether to participate.
What is external validity?
the degree to which the investigator can extend or generalize a study's results to other subjects and situations. (repeatability)
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What is an extraneous variable?
a variable other than the IV that could cause changes in the value of the DV. (doesn't act as the IV like confounding variables)
What is internal validity?
The degree to which an observed effect was due to the experiment manipulation not confounding/extraneous variables
What is mundane realism?
refers to how a study mirrors the real world
What does reliability mean?
consistency (can the research be carried out multiply times and get the same results)
What does validity mean?
accuracy/legitimacy. does it represent reality
What does split half method mean?
the questions are split in half and the same ppts answer one set some time before the second set. If the scores of each half are similar, it is said the the test is reliable
What does inter-rated/observer reliability mean?
People are notorious for their inconsistency. We are easily distracted, we get tired of doing repetitive tasks. Using 2 observers makes the results more reliable, IF THEY'RE FINDINGS ARE SIMILAR.
What does test-retest mean?
redoing the experiment, if the results are similar there is a high external validity.
However, risks observer bias.
What is a questionnaire?
a series of written questions a researcher presents to subjects
Strengths of questionnaires
+ Cost effective
+ Can gather large amounts of data quickly
+ Can be completed without the researcher being present
Weaknesses of questionnaires
- Can produce response bias
- Ppts may misunderstand the question or read it incorrectly
- Demand Characteristics / Social Desirability may occur
What does qualitative data mean?
literature based data
What does quantitative data mean?
numerical based data
Strengths of qualitative data
+Rich in detail
+Allows for in-depth analyse
Weaknesses of qualitative data
- difficult to analyse
-difficult to compare people or groups
Strength of quantitative data
+easier to analyse
+Easier to compare groups/people
Weaknesses of quantitative data
- not detailed
- potentially superficial
Opened questionnaires
+ allows justification
+ generates qualitative data
Closed questionnaires
+ Restricted respondent to a predetermined set responses
+ Generate quantitative data
What is an interview?
one-to-one conversation with propose
What is a structured interview?
an interview in which a set of standardised questions having an established set of answers is used
What is a unstructured interview?
No preset questions which allows the interviewer to explore the areas further with questions arising from the respondents answer
Strengths of structured interviews
+Allowed more targeted questioning and allows some questions to produce quantitative data.
Weaknesses of structured interviews
- doesn't allow the researchers to pick up on interesting comments
- time-consuming as they interview ppt individually and then that data in transcribed and analysed.
Strengths of unstructured interviews
+ More flexible in how the questions are asked
+ Allows for a sensitive approach to issues that is lacking other methods
Weaknesses of unstructured interviews
- Hard to standardise so hard to generalise
- Very time consuming as analysing the results will take a very long time
What is correlation?
relationship between two variables
What is a correlation coefficient?
A numerical index of the degree of relationship between two variables.
significant correlation
A stats to mean that if the results are big enough not to ignore, we accept the experiment hypothesis and reject the null-hypothesis
Features of case studies
Focus on a sample of either one individual, group or organisation
They study that sample in-depth
A type of descriptive research where IV and DV are not used to test cause and effect
Methods used in case studies.
Unstructured and semi-structured interviews, observations and past records, medical histories; diaries etc.
Bowlby's study was essentially a series of case studies of children
uses of case studies
Atypical behaviour/conditions
Unusual situations,
Usually small samples as not many are affected
Give insight into how to help
What's going on 'normally' and prevention; give in-depth insight.
Strengths of case studies
- offer high levels of validity as they go into depth and give insight
- Allows researchers to study that event when it can't redo that circumstance due to ethical issues
- Learn about issues not yet understood
- Takes one to disprove a theory
Weaknesses of case studies
- difficult to generalise
- bias, if researchers get too involved they lose objectivity and misinterpret data
- difficult to id the cause and effect
-extraneous variables aren't controlled
What is content analysis?
- a type of research method
- used to quantify the content of different types of media
- content analysis summarises the content by counting various aspects of the content
Strengths of content analyse
- High ecological validity
- Findings can be easily replicated
- No ethical issues, as the people aren't being dealt with in person
weaknesses of content analysis
- observer bias as they are recording it
-- they chose what to record to fit their hypthesis
What is a pilot study?
A small-scale trial run of the actual investigation to spot any methodology issues
What is a confederates?
When the researcher has someone play a role in an experiment or other investigation e.g Milgram's the experimenter was a confederate
Weaknesses of Repeated measures
-Order effects (learning, fatigue)
-Demand characteristics
-Different tests may be needed
Methods of dealing with the disadvantages of repeated measures
two different tests - reduces practice effect
-- can be done by constructing a test of 40 items to test A and test B
cover story - reduce the changes of the ppts finding the true aim of the experiment
Disadvantage of independent groups
Participant variables are an issue (different abilities, characteristics of each ppts) as they could become confounding variables
More ppts are needed
Methods of dealing with the disadvantages of the independent groups
- Randomly allocate ppts to conditions
Disadvantages of Matched pairs
- time consuming as you have find people with the same characteristic (e.g IQ)
- no possible to control all ppts variables as you can only match on variables known to be relevant
Methods to deal with the disadvantages of the matched pairs
- restrict the number of variables to match
- conduct a pilot study to consider key variables
What is counterbalancing?
an experiment technique used to overcome order effects when using repeated measure, this ensures that each condition is tested first or second in equal amounts
What is an order effect?
in a repeated measure design, an extraneous variable arising from the order in which conditions are presented (practice and fatigue)
Way 1 of counterbalancing (AB or BA)
group 1 - A then B
Group 2 - B then A
this is still a repeated measure deign even though there are two groups of ppts as comparison will be made for each ppt and their performance on the two conditions
Way 2 of counterbalancing (ABBA)
all ppts take part in each condition twice
trial 1: conditioning A
trail 2: condition B
trail 3: condition B
trail 4: condition A
compare 1 and 4 and 2 and 3
Conducting research online
allows researchers to be able to access ppts via the internet or on social networking tools
often questionnaires
Advantages of online research
- access to large groups, creating a diverse sample, reduces bias
- cost effect, often free or very cheap
- data analysis is quicker as ppts have transcribed their responses
Disadvantages of online research
- tend to be limited to questionnaires
- ethical issues may become more difficult to deal with as most people don't read T&C, is this valid consent
- difficult to debrief
What is an natural quasi experiment?
those with an IV
what is difference study for quasi?
no IV
Natural experiments
when it is not possible to deliberately manipulate an IV, therefore it is said that the IV varies naturally
- the DV may be tested in a lab
Difference studies
the apparent IV is naturally occurring and the DV may be measured in a lab
the IV may not been made to vary by anyone. It is simply a difference between people that exists (gender)
Evaulation, why researchers cannot draw cause-and-effect
- Manipulation of the IV
- Random allocation
- unique characteristics of ppts
Manipulation of the IV (quasi)
cannot say for certain that any change in the DV was caused by the IV, uncontrolled confounding variables
Random allocation (independent groups design)
not possible in a quasi or natural, this means there may be biases in different groups of participants, uncontrolled confounding variables
Unique Characteristics of ppts
the unique characteristics of the sample mean that the findings can't be generalised to other groups of people (low population validity)
Unique characteristic of ppts example
those who volunteer are going to be less violent when watching something violent, this can't be generalised to everyone though
Demand characteristics
cues in an experiment that tell the participant what behaviour is expected
Orne, demand characteristics
- those who were told about the panic button became more distressed then the blind group
What is researcher bias?
anything that an investigator does that has an effect on a participant's performance in a study other than what was intended
What is a direct researcher bias?
as a consequence of the investigator interacting with the ppt [Show Less]