part 2 Flashcards
what are the conventions for reporting psychological investigations?
abstract introduction method results discussion references
what is an abstract?
a summary covering all main headings
normally about 150 words
important because the reader can see all of the study at a glance
what is an introduction?
a review of previous research leading to a rationale for why the researchers intended to conduct their particular study
at the end predictions may be stated and/or a hypothesis
what is included in the method section?
design: justification of methods and ethical considerations
participants: the population (including sampling)
materials: what was used
procedure: exactly how the study was carried out
what is included in the results section?
what the researcher found, including descriptive and inferential statistics
what is included in the discussion section?
the researchers offer explanations of the behaviours they observed and may also consider implications of the results and suggestions for future research
what is included in a reference?
the full details of any journal articles or books they have mentioned
e.g.
Bandura, A. (1986)
Title in italics, place of publication
publishers name
what are measures of central tendency?
mean
median
mode
what are descriptive statistics?
measures of central tendency measures of dispersion percentages graphs tables
what is included in a peer review?
purpose
process
pitfalls
what is the purpose of peer review?
to ensure research conducted and published is of high quality (quality assurance)
what is the process of a peer review?
researcher sends their report to the editor of the journal, who sends the report out to 3 psychologists (referees) who are considered experts in the area
referees analyse and comment on whether the editor should include it in the publication
referees are unaware of the researchers identities to prevent bias but it is possible to guess
what are the pitfalls of a peer review?
reports don’t tend to get published if they don’t support a hypothesis. this can be called the ‘file-drawer’ problem, as if your results are not significant, then researchers keep them in their filing cabinet and never get written up for publication
Popper says this is unfortunate as they never have the chance to be falsified
issue of bias as certain institutions have more chance of getting published such as a university
referees volunteer to be involved and it looks good on their CV
why is it important to get published in a peer-reviewer journal?
articles published in a peer reviewed journal are of greater merit than those that aren’t
research will only be published if it makes an important contribution to the scientific field and the research has been methodologically and ethically sound
what are the issues with peer review?
the validity of a study may still get past peer reviewers
what is content analysis?
used to help convert qualitative media into quantitative data
e.g. tallying down every time something is mentioned in a transcript
what is thematic analysis?
analysing the data using the same procedure of content analysis but presenting it as qualitative data
how to carry out content analysis?
data is collected
↓
researcher examines the transcribed data to familiarise themselves with it
↓
the researcher identifies coding units
↓
data is analysed by applying coding units
↓
tally is made of each time a coding unit
appearswhat is an example of a coding unit?
for each time a serial killer mentions their mother as a reason for their behaviour could be coded as ‘M’
how do you check the reliability of content analysis?
use inter-rater reliability
both researchers use the same coding units and carry out co tent analysis independently
what is the process of thematic analysis?
reading a transcript and identifying key themes and giving each a short-hand code (still using a coding system) e.g. if a theme is mother as a reason for behaviour, the code could be ‘mum’
the read through the transcript again and give each code a colour and highlight each time you see it
then write a report, using each theme you identified as a subheading in a written report, explaining why each factor was important
use quotes to support what you say
what are the strengths of content analysis?
objective as it uses operationalised coding units
can check reliability
quantitative so way to analyse
what are the weaknesses of content analysis?
lack detail
coding units chosen by researcher so room for potential bias
what are the weaknesses of content analysis?
lacks detail
coding units chosen by researcher so room for potential bias
