paper 2 2019 Flashcards
(2019 p2) Identify the measures of central tendency from the calculations presented below. (1) (1)
Median
(2019 p2) Identify the measures of central tendency from the calculations presented below. (2) (1)
mean
(2019 p2) Identify the measures of central tendency from the calculations presented below. (3) (1)
mode
Describe the format for reporting psychological investigations. (5)
Credit could be given for:
* Investigations normally being published in a journal (print and/or on-line)
* Identification and description of typical content of various key elements in a
psychological investigation such as Title; Abstract; Introduction;
Methods/Procedures; Results; Discussion/Conclusions; References.
* Abstract: brief summary of the research.
* Introduction: brief summary of relevant literature.
* Methodology: design chosen.
* Procedure: steps that were taken by the researcher.
* Findings/result: data gathered and analysed.
* Discussion: of results and conclusion.
* Any other appropriate description.
Explain the steps you would follow to calculate a standard deviation. (6)
Credit could be given for:
* Descriptions of stages used in calculations – 1 mark per step
* Actual calculations of a worked example.
Exemplar answers:
I would calculate the standard deviation by completing the following steps:
1. Calculate the mean of the data set.
2. Take the mean away from each score in the data set.
3. Square each difference.
4. Add together each of the squared differences
5. Divide this by N – 1 (the number of scores in your data set - 1).
6. Find the square root of this value and this is the standard deviation.
Explain one strength and one weakness of using standard deviations in
psychology. (2 + 2)
Credit could be given for:
Strength:
* More precise and informative measure of dispersion than the range.
* Highlights if the mean is an appropriate measure of central tendency.
* Used in further statistical analysis, such as computing skewness.
* Less affected by anomalous results than range scores.
Weakness:
* Can only be used if the data set is normally distributed and not skewed.
* More difficult to calculate than the range score.
* Can only be used when data collected is ordinal level or above.
* Can only be used where an IV is plotted against frequency
Describe the following methodologies:
(a) Non-participant observations. (2)
Credit could be given for:
* A research method where the researcher watches and records participants’ behaviour
without interfering in any way (from a distance).
* Any other appropriate content.
Describe the following methodologies: (b) Case studies. (2)
Credit could be given for:
* A method which involves an in-depth investigation of a phenomenon, which uses a
descriptive analysis of a person, group or event. It is a holistic study through one or
more methodologies that is usually longitudinal.
* Any other appropriate content.
Describe the following methodologies: Structured interviews. (2)
Credit could be given for:
* A research method that includes standardised questions (like in a questionnaire), which
are known as an interview schedule, and are usually asked face to face.
* Any other appropriate content.
Explain the strengths of longitudinal studies and the weaknesses of cross-sectional
studies. (3+3)
Credit could be given for:
Strengths of longitudinal:
* Longitudinal studies control for ‘participant variables’, as the same person is tested on a
number of occasions and compared and therefore acts as their own control.
* Cohort variables are not a problem.
* Reduces recall bias as participants are being researched as their life occurs, rather than
research which may ask them to think back to experiences they may have had a long
time ago.
* Helps us understand the order in which events may occur.
* Helps us establish links between early life circumstances and later outcomes.
Weaknesses of cross-sectional:
* Different people are in the different groups/conditions, so any difference detected may
be due to participant variables other than age.
* Cohort variables may exist, such as individuals born during the same time period may
share important historical experiences.
* Recall bias can occur if the study asks participants about experiences they may have
had a long time ago.
* Difficult to indicate causal relationships (cause and effect).
Explain ethical issues that may arise in Social Psychological research, such
as Milgram’s (1963) research ‘Behavioural Study of Obedience’. (5)
Credit could be given for:
* Deception: to avoid demand characteristics and to see actual behaviour. Examples
such as Milgram telling his subjects that the research was about memory and
punishment when really it was about obedience.
* Exposing participants to stress: to examine changes in the behaviour that people may
experience or demonstrate when undergoing a stressful situation. Examples such as
Darley & Latane’s research when participants were exposed to smoke filling the room
to investigate the conditions under which people get help.
Explain the ethical issues that may arise in Developmental Psychological
research, such as Kohlberg’s (1968) research ‘The child as a moral
philosopher’. (5)
Credit could be given for:
* Risk of stress, anxiety, humiliation or pain: Procedures may elicit high levels of anxiety
in individual participants and may cause many negative feelings e.g. some of
Kohlberg’s younger participants (age 10) being exposed to emotionally challenging
hypothetical moral dilemmas. This is especially worrying within infant, children or
elderly populations as they may have greater difficulties is understanding the nature of
the research and any ‘debrief’ that would be offered.
* Lack of valid consent: Infant and small child participants, or indeed very elderly
participants, may not understand the aim or procedures involved in the research. Even
with consent from the next of kin, is this appropriate ethical behaviour. Examples such
as infants used in Gibson & Walk’s Visual Cliff or Langer & Rodin’s Nursing Home
studies.
(2019 p2) A psychologist is concerned about the impact that playing violent computer games is
having on the development of school children; specifically, the concern that school
children are becoming too aggressive. He decided to investigate the issue using a
quasi-experiment and a matched pairs experimental design. The IV was whether the
participant regularly plays on violent computer games or not. The psychologist then
assessed the aggression level by identifying the number of incidents recorded by the
children’s schools which indicated aggression (such as fighting, bullying etc.). One of
the findings that he reported was the range scores of both conditions. Explain why the researcher may have chosen to use a quasi-experiment in
this research. (2)
Credit could be given for:
* The researcher is behaving ethically by not exposing participants to possible harm.
* The researcher is researching a naturally occurring IV.
* The researcher has not randomly allocated participants to the experimental or control
conditions.
(2019 p2) A psychologist is concerned about the impact that playing violent computer games is
having on the development of school children; specifically, the concern that school
children are becoming too aggressive. He decided to investigate the issue using a
quasi-experiment and a matched pairs experimental design. The IV was whether the
participant regularly plays on violent computer games or not. The psychologist then
assessed the aggression level by identifying the number of incidents recorded by the
children’s schools which indicated aggression (such as fighting, bullying etc.). One of
the findings that he reported was the range scores of both conditions. State an appropriate directional hypothesis for this research. (2)
Exemplar answers:
School children who regularly play on violent computer games will have a higher number of
incidents recorded by the children’s schools which indicate aggression than school children
who do not regularly play violent games. [2 marks]
School children who do not play violent computer games will have a lower number of
incidents recorded by the children’s schools which indicate aggression than school children
who do play violent computer games. [2 marks]
The aggression levels of participants who play violent games is higher than those who don’t.
[1 mark]
* Any other appropriate content.
N.B. No credit for non-directional, null or correlational hypotheses.
(2019 p2) A psychologist is concerned about the impact that playing violent computer games is
having on the development of school children; specifically, the concern that school
children are becoming too aggressive. He decided to investigate the issue using a
quasi-experiment and a matched pairs experimental design. The IV was whether the
participant regularly plays on violent computer games or not. The psychologist then
assessed the aggression level by identifying the number of incidents recorded by the
children’s schools which indicated aggression (such as fighting, bullying etc.). One of
the findings that he reported was the range scores of both conditions. Give two advantages of using a matched pairs design in this research. (2+2)
Credit could be given for:
Advantages, such as:
* No order effects as participants only take part in one condition.
* Less chance of demand characteristics as participants only take part in one condition.
* May be less participant variables as the researcher has matched participants for
abilities or characteristics which may affect performance.
* Any other appropriate advantage.
Exemplar answer:
No order effects as the school children were either in the regularly played or not regularly
playing violent computer games. [2 marks]
(2019 p2) A psychologist is concerned about the impact that playing violent computer games is
having on the development of school children; specifically, the concern that school
children are becoming too aggressive. He decided to investigate the issue using a
quasi-experiment and a matched pairs experimental design. The IV was whether the
participant regularly plays on violent computer games or not. The psychologist then
assessed the aggression level by identifying the number of incidents recorded by the
children’s schools which indicated aggression (such as fighting, bullying etc.). One of
the findings that he reported was the range scores of both conditions. Explain one factor that the researcher may have used to match the
participants in this research. (2)
Credit could be given for:
Factors, such as:
* Age.
* Gender.
* Academic Achievement.
* Any additional learning needs.
* Any other appropriate content.
Exemplar answers:
The schoolchildren could be matched for age as otherwise the number of aggressive
behaviours might just be because they are young and immature. [2 marks]
The psychologist may have matched for school performance. [1 mark]
(2019 p2) A psychologist is concerned about the impact that playing violent computer games is
having on the development of school children; specifically, the concern that school
children are becoming too aggressive. He decided to investigate the issue using a
quasi-experiment and a matched pairs experimental design. The IV was whether the
participant regularly plays on violent computer games or not. The psychologist then
assessed the aggression level by identifying the number of incidents recorded by the
children’s schools which indicated aggression (such as fighting, bullying etc.). One of
the findings that he reported was the range scores of both conditions. Identify one ethical issue and explain why it may have been an issue in this
research. (1+2)
Credit could be given for:
* Valid consent – may not be obtained as the participants are school children and so
may not fully understand the implications of the research aims and procedures.
* Confidentiality – the school children may become labelled as aggressive if individuals’
results are published or shared with the school.
* Risk to the participant’s values, beliefs, relationships, status or privacy – The privacy of
the school children is being invaded as their school records are being examined and it
is unclear if the researchers got consent for this.
* Any other appropriate content.
(2019 p2) A psychologist is concerned about the impact that playing violent computer games is
having on the development of school children; specifically, the concern that school
children are becoming too aggressive. He decided to investigate the issue using a
quasi-experiment and a matched pairs experimental design. The IV was whether the
participant regularly plays on violent computer games or not. The psychologist then
assessed the aggression level by identifying the number of incidents recorded by the
children’s schools which indicated aggression (such as fighting, bullying etc.). One of
the findings that he reported was the range scores of both conditions. Draw one conclusion from the range scores in this research. (2)
Credit could be given for:
Exemplar answers:
The group of school children that played on violent computer games had a range score (6)
that was twice that of the school children who did not play violent computer games (3). [2
marks]
The range score for the children who played on violent computer games was higher than
the range score for the children who didn’t play on violent computer games. [2 marks]
Children who play on violent games have a wider dispersion of aggressive incidents than
those that don’t. [1 mark]
The range of one condition was twice the score of the other. [1 mark]
Children who play violent computer games are more aggressive than children that don’t
play on violent computer games. [0 marks]
* Any other interpretation.
(2019 p2) A psychologist is concerned about the impact that playing violent computer games is
having on the development of school children; specifically, the concern that school
children are becoming too aggressive. He decided to investigate the issue using a
quasi-experiment and a matched pairs experimental design. The IV was whether the
participant regularly plays on violent computer games or not. The psychologist then
assessed the aggression level by identifying the number of incidents recorded by the
children’s schools which indicated aggression (such as fighting, bullying etc.). One of
the findings that he reported was the range scores of both conditions. Explain one weakness of using the range scores in this research. (2)
Credit could be given for:
Exemplar answers:
As the range score is quite crude, the range scores of the group who play on violent
computer games may have been affected by just one anomalous result. [2 marks]
The range is affected by anomalous results. [1 mark]
* Any other appropriate strength or weakness.
(2019 p2) A psychologist is concerned about the impact that playing violent computer games is
having on the development of school children; specifically, the concern that school
children are becoming too aggressive. He decided to investigate the issue using a
quasi-experiment and a matched pairs experimental design. The IV was whether the
participant regularly plays on violent computer games or not. The psychologist then
assessed the aggression level by identifying the number of incidents recorded by the
children’s schools which indicated aggression (such as fighting, bullying etc.). One of
the findings that he reported was the range scores of both conditions. Explain why a peer reviewer might consider researcher bias to be an issue in
this research. (2)
Credit could be given for:
Exemplar answers:
Researcher bias is when researchers record the response they expect from the
participants in different conditions. As the psychologist already believed that there was
concern over the impact that playing violent computer games is having on the development
his assessment of the aggressive acts in the school records may be subjective. [2 marks]
The psychologist is collecting the data about aggressive incidents from the school records
himself. [1 mark]
The psychologist’s beliefs might affect his judgement. [1 mark]
* Any other appropriate content.
(2019 p2) A librarian is concerned about the low numbers of college students borrowing books
from the college library. To investigate his concerns he wanted to plot the number of
occasions where a book had been borrowed from the college library in the last five
years onto a graph. Identify one appropriate graphical representation that could be used to
display the data in this research. (1)
Credit could be given for:
* Line graph.
* Histograms.
* Bar charts.
* Pie Charts.
(2019 p2) A librarian is concerned about the low numbers of college students borrowing books
from the college library. To investigate his concerns he wanted to plot the number of
occasions where a book had been borrowed from the college library in the last five
years onto a graph. Using the graphical representation that you identified in (a) (i) display
the data in this research. (4)
Credit could be given for:
Features (1 mark per feature, up to a maximum of 4 marks) for graphical representations
not including pie charts:
* Appropriate title for graphical representation.
* Appropriate label and scale of x-axis.
* Appropriate label and scale of y-axis.
* Appropriate and accurate plotting that reflects the graphical representation identified in
10 (a) (i).
Four Features (Title, logical depiction, labelled segments, percentages) so 4 marks.
N.B. If the candidate uses a pie chart, the following features would receive credit:
* Appropriate title (1 mark).
* Key or labels of segments (1 mark).
* Appropriate proportions for each segment (2 marks).
(2019 p2) A librarian is concerned about the low numbers of college students borrowing books
from the college library. To investigate his concerns he wanted to plot the number of
occasions where a book had been borrowed from the college library in the last five
years onto a graph. The librarian also wants to collect some qualitative data about why the college
students are borrowing fewer books from the college library. As you study
research methods in A Level Psychology, he asks you to do this. Identify and
justify your choices of methodology and sampling technique in this research. (6)
Credit could be given for:
Methodology:
* Semi-structured interviews
* Unstructured interviews
* Questionnaires (with open questions)
* Focus Groups
Sampling:
* Random sampling
* Opportunity sampling
* Systematic sampling
* Stratified sampling
* Quota sampling
* Self-selected sampling
* Snowball sampling
