Child Practical Evaluation

Question 1

Strengths

Answer 1

Reliability
Objectivity

Question 2

Weaknesses

Answer 2

Ecological
Population
Construct

Question 3

Reliability good

Answer 3

Reliability is a strength because of the closed questions in the questionnaire
Due to the closed questionnaire, answers are funnelled to certain boxes, therefore depending on the time, mood of participant or circumstance (just had an argument with parent) their answers would be consistent if it was taken at a good or bad time, mood or circumstance. This gives the researcher consistent reliable data, if the study was repeated under repeated measures design the same answers would therefore be collected more or less, giving the same attachment type each time.
This shows that, our study has high-retest reliability so results if repeated many times would show the same results

Question 4

Reliability counter argument

Answer 4

External reliability is poor in the sence that, if a person has recently argued with their partner results could differ, but due to how the questionnaire is put together, results should not vary significantly

Question 5

Objectivity

Answer 5

Our study has high objectivity as participants results and identities were kept strictly confidential, and all data collected was quantitive.
The questionnaire was completed online, so no answers could be altered in the processing of handing it back to the experimenter.
Participants were also given a random number, so identities were confidential and participants answers could not be shared to sixth form students.
Additionally, we used a chi-squared test to analyse quantitative data. So no interpretations from researchers were necessary and all data was analysed in the exact same way.
This shows that all data obtained was analysed in a way researcher biasty could not be present, and confidentiality was kept hidden from all researchers and sixth form students so that no information could be read knowing it was from a particular participant.

Question 6

Construct validity

Answer 6

Construct validity in this study is low as our social desirability bias could have been very present. Knowing that these results would be going to mostly the parents children and teacher, their actual answers to questions could have changed results even if there was a chance they could know it was them. This means that our results were false and we are just analysing the sociable desirable answer. Although our extraneous variables were controlled so that the questions were much more subtle to avoid the issue of choosing the sociable desirable answer, but there is still a great chance this could be the case.

Question 7

Population validity

Answer 7

Our population validity is low due to the sample we used not representing an entire population of adults, in the sense that our secure adult attachment type is over represented.
Our percentage of secure attachment types was 74% while Ainsworth’s was 65%, both also taken from a western cultured population so results should be more similar. This is due to most participants being parents of sixth form students.
Sixth form students need a relatively stable home life to be educationally successful enough to get into sixth form, which increases the likelihood of having a secure attachment type relationship at home.
This means that our findings are not accurate to our target population so are ungeneralisable to all adults relationships, additionally we do not have enough anxious resistant or avoidant attachment type relationships data to know if people with these relationships have them due to their childhood attachments to parents.

Question 8

Ecological validity

Answer 8

Lastly our ecological validity is low as there are alternative ways of getting more realistic data to avoid social desirability bias. Questionnaires are self reporting data, meaning people who take the questionnaire would put more socially acceptable answers to make themselves more socially acceptable, even feel less judged from the researchers especially if they are their children and childrens teacher. Using for example, cameras in the home and then analysing footage would be a much more accurate set of data.
This shows that the method we used can produce false results due to social desirability bias, so results cannot be generalised to the real world as we are just analysing the socially acceptable answer.

Question 9

Conclusion

Answer 9

In conclusion, due to ways in which we have gathered data and the people we have chosen as participants our results are likely to be inaccurate and false most likely due to social desirability bias.