Key practical - cognitive psychology

Question 1

What is the title?

Answer 1

To see whether age has an effect on digit span

Question 2

What is the aim of the study?

Answer 2

Is there a difference between digit span (out of 10) between 16-17 year olds and 40+ year olds

Question 3

What is the IV and DV?

Answer 3

IV - The age of the participants
DV - Digit span

Question 4

What is the hypothesis?

Answer 4

Experimental - 16-17 year olds have a higher digit span because as you age you tend to lose memory
Null - No correlation between the digit span out of 16-17 year olds compared to 40 year olds

Question 5

What is the sampling method?

Answer 5

Opportunity sample

Question 6

What was the procedure?

Answer 6

-Ask the first 10 16-17 year olds who are available in the 6th form common room to participate in our study
-Ask the first 10 40+ year olds who are available at the local train station to participate in our study
-All participants sign a consent form, outlining details of the experiment
-Each participant is taken into a quiet room, where they are given a digit span test starting from 4 and ending at 10. Participants will be stopped if they can’t remember in the correct order.
-Digits are presented on a screen, 1 second interval between each digit
-Participants debriefed at the end
-All scores recorded for both groups and a Mann Whitney U conducted
-Results presented in a bar chart

Question 7

What is the conclusion?

Answer 7

The calculated value of 14 was less than the critical value of 27 meaning the results are significant. This means the 16-17 year olds had a higher digit span compared to 40+ year olds, suggesting age has an effect on digit span, for a one tailed test where P < 0.05

Question 8

Evaluation

Answer 8

-A weakness is it lacked generalisability. This is because our sample was very small, consisting of 10 in each condition. Therefore we aren’t able to apply our findings about digit span and age to people in other areas or countries because the sample isn’t representative
-A strength is we used a standardised procedure. This means the practical can be easily replicated allowing us to draw comparisons increasing reliability
-Strength is it is ethical. Participants all signed a consent form. They were also debriefed at the end. This increases reliability
-Practical lacks ecological validity because it was conducted in a lab setting making it an artificial environment. This means participants won’t behave naturally
-Lacks internal validity as we didn’t eliminate any psychology students from our sample.