extraneous variables Flashcards

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1
Q

what does it mean if a study claims to measure what it is measuring

A

it is valid

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2
Q

what are the three types of extraneous variables

A

participant variables
investigator effects
situational variables

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3
Q

what are participant variables

A

extraneous variables that are personal characteristics of the participant

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4
Q

what is the second name for investigator effects

A

experimenter variables

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5
Q

how do investigator effects occur in a study

A

when the researcher influences the behaviour of the participants, when then affect the results of the study

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6
Q

how can researchers influence the results of the study

A

expectations, which is an example of researcher effects

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7
Q

how can the researchers expectations influence the study

A

this can affect the researchers behaviour. this can then influence the behaviour of the participant, and therefore the results of the study. This is known as investigator effects

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8
Q

what are situational variables

A

anything external to the participants and researcher that could affect the behaviour of the participants

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9
Q

examples of situational variables

A

time of day

how noisy the testing room is

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10
Q

what are demand characteristics

A

situational variables that act as hints that enable participants to guess the aim of the study

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11
Q

what are the two ways that participants can respond to demand characteristics

A

some participants try to be helpful and behave the way they think they should behave. others rebel and behave the opposite to how they think they should behave

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12
Q

what can demand characteristics be

A

situational variables or investigator effects

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13
Q

what happens when extraneous variables are not controlled

A

they reduce the validity and reliability of the study

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14
Q

one way to control extraneous variables

A

is through standardisation

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15
Q

what is standardisation

A

when researchers make an extraneous variable the same for all participants, so the validity and reliability increase

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16
Q

why cant you use standardisation for participation variables

A

because you can’t change a person’s personal characteristics

17
Q

which extraneous variables can be standardised and why

A
  • investigator effects because we can control factors related to the investigator
  • we can standardised situational variables because we can control variables in a situation
18
Q

what are the limitations of matching

A
  • it can be time-consuming because the researcher has to measure the personal characteristics o their participants then try and identify participants with similar characteristics
  • we can’t control for every possible participant variable that could affect the results of the study- some participant variables will not be controlled
19
Q

what does it mean if a researcher can match their groups for personal characteristics

A

making sure a particular characteristic of participants is divided equally across groups

20
Q

what is matching

A

when researchers allocate their participants to different groups in a way that it makes sure that a particular characteristics is divided equally across both parts

21
Q

what is random allocation

A

participants are assigned at random to experimental groups in order to ensure similar participants in each group

22
Q

what can standardisation be used to control

A

personal characteristics

23
Q

what can random allocation be used to control

A

situational variables

24
Q

what can matching be used to control

A

investigator effects

25
Q

strength of random allocation

A

if there is a large group of participants, participant variables will be distributed evenly across groups

26
Q

what does it mean when participants are blind to the experiment that they are in

A

they don’t know what experimental group they are in and this is called a single blind experiment

27
Q

what can blinding help deal with in experiments

A

demand characteristics

28
Q

why is blinding used

A

there will be less chance of participants responding to demand characteristics because they are less likely to guess what the researcher is investigating

29
Q

which factors can double blinding help control

A

investigator effects and demand characteristics

30
Q

what is a double blind study

A

if the researcher and participant are blind to the study

31
Q

what is a single blind study

A

if only the participant blind to experimental groups

32
Q

what is reliability?

A

Reliability refers to how consistently a method measures something. If the same result can be consistently achieved by using the same methods under the same circumstances, the measurement is considered reliable.

33
Q

what does representativeness mean?

A

if the results can be generalised. whether the sample are typical of the rest of the target population