****Evaluation Paper 2 Flashcards
Strength of using a random sample
- unlikely to be biased, because no control over who is in sample
- all menders have equal chance of being chosen
Weakness of using a random sampling
- take a long time, especially if the target population is large
Strength of using an opportunity sample
- convenient, as sampler selects people who are there
- quick and easy
- likely to be ethical
Weakness of using an opportunity sample
- less representative, results are less generalizable
Strength of volunteer sampling
- pps are motivated, less chance to withdraw
- quick and easy
- access to a wide variety of people that you normally would not have access
Weakness of volunteer sampling
- mostly similar
- more likely to demonstrate demand characteristics
Strength of a controlled observation
- standardised procedure,collects reliable results
- helps eliminate extraneous variables as the environment is controlled
Weaknesses of a controlled observation
- demand characteristics, as they know they are being watched and tested
- lacks ecological validity, as artificial environment
- experimenter bias
- might lack reliability
Strength of a naturalistic observation
- high validity, as observed in realistic situation, behaviours can be applied to real life
- will not miss any behaviour that is important, not restricted to the list
Weaknesses of a naturalistic observation (control, researcher, covert overt)
- difficult to record all activities accurately and many may be irrelevant
- researcher needs to be trained to be able to recognise aspects of a situation that are psychologically significant
- overt observers produce less valid findings, as pps behaviours may be altered due to being watched
- covert observers causes ethical issues, because of deception, this could invade privacy and causes distress
Advantage of using over observation
- ethical, fully informed
Disadvantage of using overt observation
- demand characteristics
Strength of using covert
- no demand characteristics
- high validity
Weakness of using covert
- data collection is more difficult as hidden far away
- this potentially reduces validity and reliability
- ethical issue involved because pps can give informed consent, if work out experimenter’s role can be distressed
Strength of using participant
- good for structured observation, more detail
- large variety of data
- longitudinal data can be produced
Weaknesses of using participant observation
- may not be able to observe everything
- difficult to record information as you need to blend in
Strengths for using non-participant observation
- less demand characteristics
- researcher wont be able to affect the results, less researcher bias, more objective
Weaknesses for using a non-participant observation
- less valid, risk of missing out information
- less in depth observations
5 strengths of using case study
- Ideal when it is difficult to gather a large sample, rare or unique behaviours can be studies in detail
- Participants can be studied over a long period of time, developmental changes can be recorded. This is longitudinal, it often means that data gathered are detailed
- Ecological validity is high, as studied as part of everyday life
- Sample may be self-selecting
- Rich and detailed data gathered
4 weaknesses for case study
- May not produce enough quantitative data for statistical testing, means little more than anecdotal evidence
- Lacks objectivity, as involves quite intense relationship between the researcher and the participant
- Lacks generalisability
- Participants may be unique in some way, researchers may not know how to proceed, might draw false conclusion
5 strengths for self report
- give opportunity to express a range of feelings and explain their behaviour
- open questions produce rich and detailed data
- closed questions are easier to analyze
- Large no of pps can be questioned quickly, increase representativeness and generalisability
- Questionnaires are easy to replicate
* *reductionist, answers restricted to a scale
5 weaknesses for self report
- Social desirability
- Time consuming to analyze if open questions asked
- Closed questions do not give pps to say WHY
- Leading questions could affect validity
- Telephone interview can caused pps to withdraw easily, or may find difficult to understand questions
2 weaknesses for correlation
- Conclusions do not necessarily reflect a causal relationship
- Third variable problem
4 strengths for correlation
- Can study variables which cannot be practically manipulated
- Can study… cannot be ethically manipulated
- Whether two variables are correlated or not
- Quick and economical as no need to set up controlled environment and no variable being manipulated
2 weaknesses for lab experiment
- Artificial
2. Demand characteristics
2 strengths for lab experiment
- High control, control effect of extraneous variable
2. Easily replicated
2 strengths for field experiment
- Less artificial than a lab
- e.g. children may play phone at home but not in lab - Demand characteristics
- e.g. the children would be less self conscious about being watched
2 weaknesses for field experiment
- Less control, more extraneous variables
2. Ethics, might experience distress and often not debriefed
2 strengths for natural experiment
- used in situations in which it would be ethically unacceptable to manipulate the independent variable, e.g. researching stress.
- High ecological validity because they study real life issues as they happen
- less likelihood of demand characteristics affecting the results, as participants may not know they are being studied
2 weaknesses for natural experiment
- They may be more expensive and time consuming than lab experiments
- There is no control over extraneous variables that might bias the results.
- difficult for replication
2 strengths for structured interview
- Can be easily replicated because questions are standardised
- Easier to analyze than semi-structured because questions are predictable
2 weaknesses for structured interview
- Answers may not be truthful because of leading questions or social desirability bias
- Answers may be influenced by the way the interviewer ask the question
3 strengths for semi-structured interview
- More detailed info can be gathered because interview can deal with incomplete answers
- Can gain extra info cuz questions developed according to pps answers
- More ecological validity cuz like a real conversation
3 weaknesses for semi-structured interview
- More likely to be affected by interviewer bias
- Required trained interviewers who can develop insightful, unbiased questions on the spot and avoid interviewer bias
- Can be difficult to summarize data, or to make comparisons between pps, cuz questions may be different for each
1 strength for unstructured interview
- More flexibility, because interviewers can follow points up as they arise
3 weaknesses for unstructured interview
- hard to analyze, because a lot of data is not relevant
- Answers may not be truthful due to social desirability bias
- Requires trained interviewers who can develop unbiased questions on the spot and avoid interviewer bias
Strengths and weaknesses of using an independent group design
No order effects
- no one gets better through practice
Participant variables
- differences between people in each group might affect the results
Number of participants
- need twice as many pps to get the same amount of data, more time consuming and can be more expensive
Strengths and weaknesses of using a repeated measure design
Order effect
- pps can be practiced
Participant variables
- differences among individuals won’t affect the results
Number of participants
- fewer pps are required to get same amount of data, cheaper and less time consuming
Strengths and weaknesses of matched pair design
No order effects
- there are different people in each condition
Participant variables
- important differences are minimized through matching
Number of pps
-need twice as many, it will be time consuming to match pps
2 strengths of using mode
- quick and easy to calculate
- shows the most important score
2 weaknesses of using mode
- not very useful when there are several modal value
- tells us nothing about other scores
Strengths and weaknesses of using median
- quick and easy to calculate
- not affected by extreme scores
- not all scores are used
Strengths and weaknesses of using mean
- use all scores
- can be skewed by extreme value, can be misleading
- sometimes give unrealistic value (2.4 children)
Strengths and weaknesses of using range
- quick and easy to calculate
- misleading if there are extreme scores
Strengths and weaknesses of using standard deviation
- all scores are taken into account, so more accurate than range
- not as quick and east to calculate as range
Disadvantage of using a likert-scale question
- individual differences
- pps may interpret the 0-10 scale differently
Disadvantage of collecting data using open question
- subjectivity
- researcher’s interpretation of answers may differ from
their intended expression of happiness)
One advantage of random allocation
- reduce participant variable
- e.g. not all ‘sleepy’ participant end up in one condition
One disadvantage of operationalisation using a likely-style
- individual difference
- people may interpret the 0-10 scale differently
why interview is better than observation?
- in observation, pps cannot explain WHY they behaved in a particular way
