Learning practical (evaluation)

Question 1

Construct validity

Answer 1

MIXED

if someone says ‘thanks’ that is polite (high face validity). However someone could be impolite but self interested (well mannered to teacher as it’s beneficial to do so but they may be rude to people that don’t matter)

Additionally, not saying ‘thanks’ doesn’t necessarily indicate impoliteness as they may be in a rush, a bad mood or shy.

[at face value it measures politeness as it intends to however the measurement interacts with social and situational factors (e.g shy, bad mood, self interested) so whether someone is polite is often unknown simply from whether they say thanks]

Question 2

ecological validity

Answer 2

FAIRLY HIGH

Real life (naturalistic), non participant, covert observation meaning there are no demand characteristics or SDB (e.g saying thanks as they know their politeness is being measured- or the converse) as the participants are entirely unaware of the observation. As such, this is real life, realistic ‘politeness behaviour’ as it would be in any real life setting.
BUT
school setting demands more politeness than many real life opportunities to be polite so it may be inflated in comparison to every day politeness (e.g at a coffee shop on the weekend)

Question 3

population validity

Answer 3

MIXED

target population is normal adults.Our sample is 16-17 year old sixth formers. By 17 you are already fairly matured and established as a person- if you are going to end up a polite person you already will be by this age.

BUT
this is more true of girls than boys. Boys are more concerned with status at 17 than they are at e.g 30 so less likely to say thank you and be polite in fear of diminishing their social status. Therefore, male data doesn’t fully generalise to the target population. Furthermore, it is reported that men reach full psychological maturity up to 10 years later than women so 17 year old men may be immature so impolite but when they mature, they will be polite so not typical of all men.

Question 4

objectivity

Answer 4

MIXED

Very little opinion involved in identifying gender or whether they’ve said thank you. (thought it may be hard to identify if mumbling)

qualitative data was subjectively interpreted and gathered- we notice certain things and not other due to unconscious biases. we said boys purposely mumbled and lowered their voice which is our opinion, their voices may simply be this way.

Question 5

Reliability

Answer 5

low external (tets-retest) reliability. observation on p1 monday vs p5 friday will show vastly different politeness levels due to systematic changes in mood (improved mood towards end of week). Though, the differences between genders may remain constant even in an overall jump in mood.

Inter-rater reliability is high (male vs female and polite vs impolite are both very clear and objective for quantitative data so different observers would find the same results)