Investigation 2

Question 1

aim

Answer 1

to investigate the difference in the total duration of mobile phone use within a 30-minute social lunch period between males and females.

Question 2

experimental hypothesis

Answer 2

Male sixth form students from an independent school in Coventry who are observed in a 30-minute time over a one-hour school period will spend longer on their phone compared to female sixth form students from the same independent school in Coventry in the same 30-minute period.

Question 3

direction of hypothesis and why

Answer 3

directional hypothesis → previous research by Kiefner-Burmeister who looked at mobile phone use during family meals at restaurants and found fathers had more continuous mobile phone use compared to mothers.

Question 4

null hypothesis

Answer 4

there will be no significant difference between the length of time that male and female sixth form students spend on their phones in a 30-minute social lunch period.

Question 5

observational technique and why

Answer 5

structured observation

• provided quantitative data which is better because it is easier to analyse.

Question 6

target population

Answer 6

sixth form students at an independent school in Coventry.

8 males + 8 females

Question 7

sampling type and why

Answer 7

opportunity sampling

• less time consuming than random as it’s easy to choose from the target population - we have easy access to that age group.
• however, could show bias as we are choosing people subjectively and could choose people who we expect to be on their phones more often – but if we had done random sampling it would have taken too long.

Question 8

descriptive statistics and why

Answer 8

mean because the data is interval not nominal

Question 9

graphical representation and why

Answer 9

bar chart

• non-continuous data

Question 10

statistical test and why

Answer 10

Mann-Whitney U test

• difference study
• independent groups
• not nominal data → interval

Question 11

issues of validity and how did you prevent them

Answer 11

low ecological validity → small sample size of just 6th form students so we can’t generalise to the rest of the population.
- Increase sample size to reduce the likelihood of random variations/extreme scores influencing the findings.

researcher bias → we may unconsciously look for people we know will be on their phone for longer or shorter period of time due to opportunity sampling.
- Do random sampling.

Methods of assessing validity:
- Concurrent validity – used previous research on the same topic.
- Content validity – discussed with expert psychology teacher for advice and made any necessary changes.
- Face validity – analysed as a group and asked our teacher if our research would do what we set out to.

Question 12

issues of reliability and how did you prevent them

Answer 12

subjective → researcher had to judge whether they thought a person was on their phone or not.

lack of standardised procedure → people could have been using their phones on groups of both males and females which wasn’t considered and could be an issue when it comes to scoring phone use.

How we dealt with reliability issues:

• Discussed possible issues and made standardised procedures to minimise variation between researchers e.g “if someone else is using their phone it is not counted in the time”
• Could do test-retest – observe sample people in another lunch time to see if the individual difference remains constant.

Question 13

ethical issues and how they were dealt with

Answer 13

• confidentiality → didn’t take names.
• privacy → didn’t look at what they were doing on their phones.

other issues:

• valid consent → demand characteristics, social desirability bias - can’t give consent as it is non-participant, but they may not want to be observed, however not asking them to do anything they wouldn’t already be doing.
• risk of harm → cant guarantee that someone doesn’t know we are watching them, and the individual won’t know why they are being watched so they could be uncomfortable and confused.

Question 14

improvements to research

Answer 14

bigger sample group

• low potential group for opportunity sample as many people went out for food, went to clubs etc.
• research had to be done over multiple occasions.

use a more specific sampling technique

• e.g time sampling → check how many people are using their phone every 3 minutes and then tally up the scores to provide a more objective measurement.

Question 15

Conclusion

Answer 15

There is no difference at the 5% level of significance. The critical value for a one tailed test when n1=10 and n2=10 is 27. Since the observed value of 38 is higher than the critical value the experimental hypothesis can be rejected, and the null hypothesis can be accepted as the null hypothesis stated that there will be no difference between the participants who listen to same background music when learning and recalling compared to those who listen to different background music when recalling.