Research Methods Flashcards
What is research?
Systematic ways of finding things out.
What are the 5 types of research methods?
Self-report
Experiments
Observations
Correlational studies
Case studies
What is an aim?
An aim identifies the purpose of the investigation. An aim usually starts with phrases such as ‘to find out’ or ‘to investigate’.
What is a hypothesis?
A precise, testable statement of what the researchers predict will be the outcome of the study.
What is a variable?
Anything that can change/vary.
Eg. memory, attention, time taken to perform a task etc.
What is the independent variable?
The variable that the researcher manipulates (changes).
What is the dependent variable?
The variable that the researcher measures in their experiment.
Why does a researcher try to control extraneous variables?
So the results are valid.
What is objectivity?
Unbiased - no influence from personal feelings or experiences the researcher has.
What is reliability?
Consistency of results over time.
What is validity?
Measures what it was intended to measure (internal) or if the results generalise (external).
What is a null hypothesis (H0)?
A hypothesis which states that there’s no relationship between the 2 variables being studied.
It should start with ‘there will be no significant difference between…’
What is an alternative (experimental) hypothesis (H1)?
A hypothesis which states that there’s a relationship between the 2 variables being studied.
It’s either directional/one-tailed or non-directional/two-tailed.
What is a directional/one-tailed hypothesis?
It predicts the nature of the effect of the IV on the DV.
Has a comparison word like ‘more’.
What is a non-directional/two-tailed hypothesis?
It predicts that the IV will have an effect on the DV but the direction of the effect is not specified.
What is a sample?
A smaller group selected from the target population.
What is the target population?
A group who are the focus of a researcher’s interest, from which a smaller group are selected (sample).
What are sampling techniques?
The method used to select people/animals from a population.
FOR EXPERIMENTS.
What does it mean to have a biased sample?
Over- or under-representation in a sample.
What are generalisations?
The extent to which findings can be broadly applied to the target population.
What does representative mean?
A small quantity of something that accurately reflects the larger entity.
What is a sampling frame?
A list of all those within a population who can be sampled, and may include individuals, households or institutions.
What is random sampling?
All members of the target population have an equal chance of being selected (eg. putting all their names in a random generator).
What are the strengths and weaknesses of random sampling?
+ each person has an equal chance of selection, so no researcher bias.
+ should be representative, based on laws of probability, so should be able to generalise.
- time-consuming.
- may still end up with an unrepresentative sample.
- participants may refuse to take part (could lead to having a sample collected by volunteer sampling).