Methological Issues Flashcards
What is ecological validity?
Refers to whether the measure of behaviour resembles real life. This tends to be lower when lab experiments are used as it means behaviour is not very naturalistic.
What is population validity?
Refers to whether the sample used in the research is diverse and representative (e.g. of different ages, genders, occupations or backgrounds).
What is construct validity?
Refers to whether the study is really measuring what it is supposed to and whether extraneous variables (other factors that could affect the DV) are controlled for.
What are demand characteristics?
- Cues given in an experiment which means that participants are able to work out the purpose of the study.
- If this happens, participants are likely to change their behaviour and act in a way they think the researcher expects them to. This would lower the validity of the results.
What is social desirability?
When participants respond in a way that is socially acceptable (rather than given their true / honest answers).
What is internal reliability?
Whether the research has been kept the same (standardised) for all the participants so that it is replicable and could be repeated by another researcher and get the same results.
What is external reliability?
Whether the research has been carried out on multiple participants as for results to suggest a consistent trend there needs to be a large sample of participants. If there are too few, then anomalies (or flukes) can skew the data.
What is inter-rater reliability?
This is only relevant in observational studies when there are multiple observers who watch the same participants. If they independently record the same findings then we would say that the research has high inter-rater reliability however if they have different results then it would have low inter-rater reliability.
What is ethnocentrism?
When research is only centred on one ethnic group.
