AS Research methods 11-16 Flashcards
What is peer review?
- Independent scrutiny by psychologists that work in the same or similar field
- research is considered in terms of: validity/significance/originality
- appropriateness of overall methods and design is assessed
What for things can reviewers do?
- accept manuscript
- accept with revisions
- suggest revisions and resubmit
- reject without possibility of resubmission
What does peer review ensure?
- quality
- relevance
- accuracy
- evaluates proposed designs
What does peer review prevent?
- discrimination of irrelevant findings
- unwarranted claim
- unacceptable interpretation
- personal views
- deliberate fraud
What is the process of peer review?
Research report is written
Published in scientific journal
Peer reviewed
Then published
What are the strengths of peer review?
+ independent scrutiny increases probability of errors beings identified
+double blind procedure to ensure anonymity of researcher and reviewer
+involves a specialist psychologist to make best judgement, poor research may be positively peer reviewed as reviewer didn’t understand (is specialist psychologist isn’t possible)
What are the weaknesses of peer review?
- unfair as some specialists have connections with certain unis (Favouritism/bias may happen depending on institution of researcher)
- Journals tend to prefer positive results therefore bias therefore misperception of the fact
What is economy?
Refers to the state of a country/region in terms of production and consumption of goods and services in terms of money
What are the four ways in which psychology can affect the economy?
- Healthcare
- law and policies
- government finances
- employment and productivity
How does social Influence affect the economy?
Healthier lifestyles
Less pressure on NHS, less time off, therefore more productivity
What is the economic implication of memory?
Cognitive interview improves accuracy of information collected from eyewitnesses
- less police time wasted
- less wrongful arrest/imprisonment
What is the economic implication of attachment?
Both parents are equally capable, resulting in
-parents being better equipped to maximise income
Therefore contribute more effectively to economy
What portion of work absences is due to mental health disorders and how much does it cost a year?
One third
£15 billion a year
What do effective drug therapies do?
- Reduce cost of mental health nurses to the economy
- return people to work
What can cutting edge findings do?
They may encourage investments overseas that can boost the economy through international means
But they may add financial burden to the NHS as new more affective treatments can be more expensive
What is quantitated data?
Numbers
Can be measured of objectively
Is immediately quantifiable
What is qualitative data?
Words/phrases
Quantifiable if you put in categories
Why is qualitative data hard to analyse?
It’s based on interpretation (inaccurate/subjective/biased)
May not be easy to categorise or collate
What is primary data?
Data collected directly by researcher
What is secondary data?
Collected for purpose other than current use (gov statistics)
What is meta-analysis?
Combination of a number of results
More reliable as it is generalised across larger populations
But may have publication bias
What is publication bias
Researcher may leave out studies with negative/non-significant results
What are tables?
A measure of central tendency/dispersion
A paragraph is written under explaining the data
(descriptive statistics)
What are scattergrams?
Graphical displayed
Show correlation between covariables
Indicate strength and direction of correlation
What is a bar chart?
Frequency data for discrete (separate) variables
What are distributions?
Bell shaped curve
A normal distribution is symmetrical
What is different about the ends of the curves in a distribution?
Ends of the curve is never touch the X axis
What is negative skew?
What is positive skew?
Skewed distributions lean to one side
Positive skew: on the left side
Negative skew: on the right side
What is descriptive statistics?
Help describe show or summarise data in a meaningful way
What do you central tendency is inform us of?
Central values of a set of data
Name one strength and one weakness of mean
+representative of all data
-can be distorted by an anomaly making it inaccurate
Name one strength and one weakness of median
+unaffected by extremes/ anomalies
-Any outlier values/extreme values that form part of the average
Less sensitive and doesn’t represent all findings
Name one strength and one weakness of mode
+ unaffected by extreme scores
-says nothing about the other scores in the data set
Name one strength and one weakness of range
+quick and easy
-easily distorted by extreme values
What is standard deviation a measure of?
Average amount that each score differs from the mean
Name one strength and one weakness of standard deviation
+ takes account of all the scores
-order to calculate than the range
How do you calculate percentages?
(Number of participants in a condition divided by total number of participants) times by 100
What are descriptive statistics?
-Measures of central tendency
– measures of dispersion
What are inferential statistics?
They test the target population and its used to infer its the same is true for the general population
What are inferential statistics used for and what are they designed to work out?
- To see if results are significant enough to make an inference
- to work out probability that data happened by chance and not IV
What is the accepted level of probability that day to happen due to chance in psychology?
Less than 5%
level at which the researcher decides to except research hypothesis
When is the sign test used?
- When there is one group of participants (repeated measures)
- when data is quantitative
State the first 2 steps of the sign test
1)State the hypothesis:
If it is directional: one-tailed test
Nondirectional: two-tailed test
2) Record data and work out sign
Subtracted before from the after and then record + or-(depending on positive or negative difference)
State the last 2 steps of the sign test
3) find calculated value (S)
Add the + and add the -
Then choose the smaller value (the less frequent sign)
4)Find the critical value (N)
The total number of scores (excluding the number 0)
