a correlational study involving the stroop test

Question 1

operationalised co-variables

Answer 1

creativity- score on the northwestern creativity scale out of 116
stroop effect- time taken to complete stroop test in seconds

Question 2

operationalised alternative hypothesis

Answer 2

there will be a significant relationship between the score on the northwestern creativity scale and the time taken to complete the stroop test (s)

Question 3

identify if the alternative hypothesis is directional or non directional

Answer 3

non directional

Question 4

justify/explain why you chose to use a non directional hypothesis and make a link to your covariables

Answer 4

the way in which the stroop test is operationalised varies significantly between studies, therefore I have chosen to do a non directional hypothesis as I am not directly replicating previous research

Question 5

appropriate null hypothesis

Answer 5

there will be no significant relationship between time spent completing a stroop test (s) and the scores on the northwestern creativity scale. any relationship will be due to chance

Question 6

identify the main characteristics of your sample group and hypothesis and make a link to your co variables

Answer 6

number- 20 minimum
gender- mixed
bilborough college students aged 16-18

Question 7

identify the sampling method you employed to select your sample

Answer 7

opportunity sample- recruit people who are readily available/ convenient

Question 8

explain at least 2 advantages of your choice of sampling technique and link them both to your co variables

Answer 8

easier technique than random sampling as i can just approach bilborough students who are available at the time rather than collecting a list of all bilborough students and randomly selecting who will complete the stroop and creativity test from the list.

less time consuming than volunteer/ self selected sample because i can approach bilborough students who are available at the same time as me rather than creating an advert to put up around college and wait for responses.

Question 9

explain at least 2 limitations of your choice of sampling technique

Answer 9

just because bilborough students are available at the time does not mean they are willing to complete the stroop test and creativity test.

inevitably biased because the sample is drawn from bilborough students readily available in the cafeteria at the time and therefore is unlikely to represent the entire bilborough college population

Question 10

give a step by step description of your procedures with links to your co variables

Answer 10

firstly, i collected participants (bilborough college students) through opportunity sampling in the college cafeteria. i then presented the participants with a briefing statement, entailing why the research is being conducted, the aim of the research and what the research includes. i will then gain the consent of the students by asking them to read through the consent form and sign if they are alright with being involved in the study. next i will read the instructions to the students of how they complete the creativity questionnaire and the stroop test. after this i will begin the study by giving the students the northwestern creativity test, and recording their scores in the data collection table when completed. i will then give the students the stroop test. i will set a stopwatch when they begin and end it when the test is completed properly. this will then be recorded alongside the creativity score for each student on the data collection table. finally i will provide a debrief to the students and make them aware that they can withdraw their data at any time if they wish.

Question 11

identify an appropriate descriptive statistic that could be used to describe the data collected with a link to your co variables

Answer 11

for creativity co variable- median and range
stroop effect co variable- mean and standard deviation

Question 12

explain why your choice of descriptive statistic is appropriate and link it to your co variables

Answer 12

as creativity is measured on the northwestern creativity scale (0-116) the data is ordinal therefore the median is the most appropriate measure of central tendency. for measure of dispersion as i have used the median the most appropriate is range as SD cant be calculated without the mean.

stroop effect is measured in time taken to complete the stroop test (s) this data is ratio therefore i have chosen the mean. for measure of dispersion i have chosen SD as i have already calculated the mean

Question 13

identify an appropriate graphical representation that could be used to describe the data collected

Answer 13

scatter graph

Question 14

explain why your choice of graphical representation is appropriate

Answer 14

a scatter graph is most appropriate as i have conducted a correlation with the co variables of creativity score and time on the stroop test. these will be plotted on a scatter graph to see the strength of the relationship between creativity and stroop

Question 15

identify an appropriate inferential statistic that you used to display the data collected

Answer 15

spearmans rank

Question 16

explain why your choice of inferential statistic is appropriate and fully link the explanation to your co variables

Answer 16

spearmans rank is most appropriate inferential test as i am looking at the correlation between creativity and stroop effect. as all bilborough students did both the creativity scale and the stroop test, data is related. lastly level of measurement for my data is at least ordinal as creativity is measured on a subjective scale and stroop effect is measured in time taken

Question 17

briefly summarise your findings

Answer 17

standard deviation= 7.12
mean=17.95
median= 49.5
range= 38
calculated value= -0.65649
critical value= 0.447

Question 18

what conclusions can you draw from these findings

Answer 18

as the calculated value was-0.65649 which is less than the critical value of 0.447 the findings are not significant at p≤0.05 therefore the null hypothesis was accepted

Question 19

identify at least 2 issues of reliability you faced in your research and how you dealt with them

Answer 19

one issue when planning our research was that the timing of the stroop test was not consistent between the researchers in our group. we dealt with this by using an online version of the stroop test that timed the completion of the test to avoid inconsistencies between researchers.

another issue we faced in the beginning was that the study was not following a standardised procedure, in that some of us did the stroop first whereas others did the creativity test first. we dealt with this by deciding as a group that students would do the creativity test first and then the stroop task

Question 20

explain how you established your research was reliable

Answer 20

we created a set of standardised instructions for all students to read regarding how to complete the creativity and stroop tests. this ensured that all students had a consistent experience of the study.

we clearly operationalised the variables of creativity and stroop effect to ensure that the variables were consistently applied throughout the study.

Question 21

identify at least two issues of validity you faced in this research and how you dealt with them

Answer 21

one issue of validity that we faced was how to measure creativity. we needed to ensure that we were accurately measuring something that can be defined in a few ways. to deal with this we decided to use an established creativity questionnaire which allowed us to clearly operationalise creativity.

another issue of validity we faced was that when timing the stroop test by hand we weren’t stopping the watch accurately enough when the student finished the test. to deal with this we decided to use an online stroop test where the student would press stop when they had finished reading the words, we found that this more accurately measured the time taken to complete the stroop.

Question 22

explain how you established your research was valid

Answer 22

we established our research was valid by assessing the content validity of our correlational study. we did this by asking our psychology teacher to assess whether the way in which we had operationalised creativity and the stroop effect were accurate ways to measure both of these concepts. she agreed that these measures were accurate, therefore the correlation could be said to have good content validity.

the stroop effect is a well established psychological phenomenon and by using the stroop test to measure this we can say that our study has good construct validity

Question 23

identify at least 2 ethical issues that concerned you before the research

Answer 23

we need to ensure we gather fully informed consent from each bilborough student involved in the study. this is because if we do not fully inform the bilborough students they may agree to something they dont really want to do.

we need to ensure we dont collect any private/ confidential information of the bilborough students when gaining their consent

Question 24

explain what you did to deal with these ethical issues

Answer 24

we created a consent form to give to each bilborough college student which fully outlined the details of the study and the aim of the study

we made sure to inform participants before hand that we are not collecting any personal data, only their signatures next to a number to identify their consent to their scores

Question 25

explain at least 2 ways in which you could improve your research and why these amendments would improve your research

Answer 25

one way which we could improve our research is to change our measure of creativity to one we feel best measures all concepts of creativity. this would improve our research as it would improve construct validity.

another way which we could improve our research is by allowing extra time in the study to repeat the same measures with the same students. this would improve test retest reliability as we would gain more insight into the participants stroop and creativity.

another way in which we could improve our research is by gaining a more varied sample of bilborough students which will increase population validity.