7.2: Validity Flashcards
A psychologist decided to conduct an experiment to investigate the effect of watching horror films before going to bed.
A volunteer sample of 50 university students consented to take part in the experiment.
The 50 students were randomly split into two groups. Group 1 watched a horror film before going to bed each night for the first week then a romantic comedy before going to bed each night for the second week. Group 2 watched the romantic comedy in the first week and the horror film in the second week.
When the students woke up each morning, each student received a text message that asked if they had had a nightmare during the night. They could respond ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
The psychologist used counterbalancing in this experiment.
The psychologist was concerned about the validity of the experiment.
Suggest one possible modification to the design of the experiment and explain how this might improve validity (3 marks)
One possible modification to the design of the experiment is to include more than one question in the text message to the students
A psychologist decided to conduct an experiment to investigate the effect of watching horror films before going to bed.
A volunteer sample of 50 university students consented to take part in the experiment.
The 50 students were randomly split into two groups. Group 1 watched a horror film before going to bed each night for the first week then a romantic comedy before going to bed each night for the second week. Group 2 watched the romantic comedy in the first week and the horror film in the second week.
When the students woke up each morning, each student received a text message that asked if they had had a nightmare during the night. They could respond ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
The psychologist used counterbalancing in this experiment.
The psychologist was concerned about the validity of the experiment.
Suggest one possible modification to the design of the experiment and explain how this might improve validity (3 marks).
One possible modification to the design of the experiment is to include more than one question in the text message to the students.
What would this do?
This would make the aim of the experiment less obvious to guess
A psychologist decided to conduct an experiment to investigate the effect of watching horror films before going to bed.
A volunteer sample of 50 university students consented to take part in the experiment.
The 50 students were randomly split into two groups. Group 1 watched a horror film before going to bed each night for the first week then a romantic comedy before going to bed each night for the second week. Group 2 watched the romantic comedy in the first week and the horror film in the second week.
When the students woke up each morning, each student received a text message that asked if they had had a nightmare during the night. They could respond ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
The psychologist used counterbalancing in this experiment.
The psychologist was concerned about the validity of the experiment.
Suggest one possible modification to the design of the experiment and explain how this might improve validity (3 marks).
One possible modification to the design of the experiment is to include more than one question in the text message to the students.
This would make the aim of the experiment less obvious to guess, which would in turn do what?
This would make the aim of the experiment less obvious to guess, which would in turn reduce demand characteristics and improve the validity of the experiment
