Evaluating research Flashcards
Reliability in psychological research
Reliability refers to the consistency and stability of a measuring tool or research result. A study is considered reliable if it produces similar outcomes when repeated. Reliability can be assessed using methods like test-retest or inter-rater reliability, which check for consistency across time or between different observers.
What is the test-retest method?
Where participants take a test twice, and if the test is reliable the two scores will be highly correlation
What is inter-rater reliability?
This type of reliability is concerned with how closely different people who are marking a test or observing behavior agree with each other. If the behavior/work has been measured reliably, then there will be high agreement
What is validity?
The validity of a psychological measure is the extent to which it measures what it intended to measure.
What is internal validity?
Means ‘does this test accurately measure what it is supposed to?
What is external validity?
means ‘can the results from this test be generalised to populations and situations beyond the situation or population being measured’
There are two types of external validity
- Population validity
- Ecological validity
What is population validity?
Refers to the extent to which the results can be generalised to groups of people other than the sample of participants used.
What is ecological validity?
Refers to the extent to which the task used in a research study is representative of real life.
What is credibility?
Credibility is a term used in qualitative research to assess whether the findings of a study correspond with the participants perceptions and experiences. Credibility is concerned with the accuracy of results obtained in research. This is also known as trustworthiness
What is the process member checking
This is a process where each participant is allowed to check transcripts of what they have said to the researcher to check that their statement have been transcribed accurately. Method to check credibility
What is peer briefing?
This is a method the also assesses the credibility of a study. This is where a colleague of the researcher or an expert carries out an analysis of a study’s findings
What is the triangulation method?
Triangulation also assess credibility of a study. This involves one research question being investigated by a number of different research methods to ascertain the consistency of the results
What is bias?
Bias refers to the factors that may affect the results of the study.
Common types of bias in research;
- researcher bias
- participant bias/demand characteristics
- sampling bias
What is researcher bias?
This is when the researcher acts differently towards participants, which may influence the participants behavior. This includes confirmation bias (where the researcher seeks evidence to support their research hypothesis) and gender bias (where the researcher makes judgements about a participant based on their gender). Researchers are trained to minimise personal biases + need to assess personal biases
What is participant bias/demand characteristics?
this is when participants act according to how they think the researcher may want them to act, this can change the behavior of the participant
What is the social desirability effect?
This is when in order to avoid aspects about their behavior being known by the researcher, they could fabricate their responses in order to look better to the researcher
What is sampling bias?
This occurs when the sample is not representative of the target population, whether the sample is based on particular selection criteria in qualitative or on probability sampling in quantitative. The outcome of sampling bias is that research can be restricted in how far it is generalizable to the wider population
What is personal reflexivity?
This involves researchers assessing whether their personal beliefs, values, expectations and experiences have influenced how the study has been conducted and how the data has been interpreted.
What is epistemological reflexivity?
relates to the knowledge gathered from a study. One aspect of this type of reflexivity is researchers considering whether the research methods used in the study have restricted the findings and assess whether alternative methods may have been better
