AO3: Research Methods (Year 13)

Question 1

Content and Thematic Analysis: High Ecological Validity

Answer 1

E: Both are used to analyse real life communications rather than data that is manufactured artificially through experiments where people are more likely to act unnaturally
- Means it’s easier to generalise findings to real life

Question 2

Content and Thematic Analysis: Strength of Content Analysis/ Limitation of Thematic Analysis is its lack of scientific validity because it’s subjective

Answer 2

E: Thematic analysis requires researchers to interpret the data themselves and this use of interpretation can lead to observer bias (when the researcher sees the results they hope to see in the research)
- Means that thematic analysis is subjective an therefore unscientific

Question 3

Content and Thematic Analysis: Strength of Thematic Analysis/ Limitation of Content Analysis is that it can only access manifest content within communication data

Answer 3

E: Manifest content is the content within research that is obvious/evident
- Content analysis relies on counting instances within communication data and this means that we see what the data says on the surface but we can’t use content analysis to understand latent content (the deeper meanings hidden within findings in research)
- E.g the number of swearwords in a text doesn’t tell us what the words mean

Question 4

Key Features of Science (Part 2): The majority of modern psychology research is scientific as it collects objective data using the empirical method

Answer 4

• E: For example, Milgram’s research into destructive obedience (one of the most sited experiments in psychology) involved seeing if participants would respond to an order by issuing an electric shock when asked to do so
• E: The study involved the observation of the participant to see if they would issue the shock, showing the empirical method data collection was used (data collection by direct observation). Moreover, whether the participants obeyed is clearly objective as Milgram collected data on the maximum shock that each participant was willing to deliver. The data being quantitative also means it is difficult to interpret it subjectively. If Milgram’s experiment is representative of general modern psychology then it shows that modern scientific psychology is scientific. However, some approaches of of modern psychology don’t use the empirical method. E.g. humanistic psychologists purposely use qualitative methods of data collection (e.g. Maslow developing the hierarchy of needs using biographical analysis)

Question 5

Key Features of Science (Part 2): An argument against modern psychology being scientific is that some psychological research lacks replicability

Answer 5

• E: E.g. Freud’s psychodynamic approach made extensive use of the Little Hans case study
• E: Since the case study involve studying unusual individuals they are very difficult to replicate so Freud’s original research has been difficult to replicate by other researchers, However Freud’s approach to psychology is seen as outdated. Majority of research today is seen as replicable