Evaluation Elephants

Question 1

Describe ecological validity

Answer 1

Can findings be generalised to a real life environments? Is the study true to real-life experiences and can it be generalised to wider population?

Question 2

Experiment

Answer 2

Psychological research mainly involves labatory studies which takes place in an academic environment. Experiment have scientific validity yet the lack ecological validity.

Question 3

Ethics

Answer 3

Does the research follow ethical guidelines? Does it break guidelines? Does it use deception or does it invade a persons privacy? Could it be repeated in a more ethical way?

Question 4

Ethnocentrism

Answer 4

Is the theory/study biased? Does it look at people from a restricted cultural viewpoint? Intelligence and personality tests are notoriously culturally biased.

Question 5

Date of study

Answer 5

Is it very old or out of date? Is the theory/study outdated?

Question 6

Empirical evidence

Answer 6

Is the theory/study well supported by empirical evidence? Is there a lot of conflicting research? Are there any other possible explanations which the theory/study overlooks?

Question 7

Sample

Answer 7

Many studies use restricted sample. Many use white, middle class, psychology students. Is this group representative?