Personal Investigation 1 - A Quasi-experiment On Age And Sleep Flashcards
What factors do you think will affect sleep quality in adults
- Aging circadian rhythms (24 hour cycles),
- insufficient exposure to daylight,
- body secretes less melatonin (hormone to help you fall asleep)
- more daytime napping
What factors do you think will affect sleep quality in teensagers
- using phone before bed
- puberty
- secreting more melatonin than adults
What was the operationalised IV and DV in this investigation (methodology)
- The IV is the participant’s age; whether they are aged 20 years and under (students) or 21 years and over (teachers).
- The DV is the sleep quality as measured on an adapted version of the sleep quality scale (SQS) where higher scores (out of 30) indicate poorer sleep quality.
Describe the sample (methodology)
- There will be 20 participants (10 participants aged 20 years and under and 10 participants aged 21 years and over).
- The mean age of participants aged 20 years and under is 16 years and 4 months of age.
- And the mean age of participants aged 21 years and over is 45 years and 6 months of age.
- All of the participants in condition one (20 years and under) are all psychology students in their first year of studying A Level psychology and so are an opportunity sample.
- All of the participants in condition two (21 years and over) are teachers at the same sixth form college and so also are an opportunity sample.
- The sample will be drawn from a target population of all psychology students and staff studying at the same sixth form college in Hampshire.
Explain how you used a quasi-experiment in your research
- My research was not a ‘true’ experiment as I did NOT deliberately manipulated the IV - age (student/teacher) is a naturally occurring variable.
- My sample were NOT randomly allocated to conditions either as they were either a teacher or student and that was a difference that already existed.
Strengths of quasi-experiments
1) It allowed my research to happen as my IV of age can’t be manipulated for practical or ethical reasons. This meant I could investigate a variable like age.
OR
2) It allowed me to investigate ‘real’ problems, such as the effects of age on sleep quality, which can help more teachers and students understand sleep better.
Weaknesses of quasi-experiments
1) I cannot demonstrate causal relationships because my IV of age (student/teacher) wasn’t manipulated directly, so I cannot be sure that the a change in age caused the different sleep quality scale scores.
OR
2) There was a threat to internal validity due to there being less control over extraneous variables that could be the reason for the DV (sleep quality scores) rather than the IV (students/teachers) as the IV was not manipulated.
Describe the procedure
- Participants received an online questionnaire (SQS) via email.
- SQS had 10 questions assessing sleep quality.
- Responses were scored from 0-3 (higher scores = poorer sleep), so overall produced a score out of 30
—> Rarely (0-3 times a month) = 0
—> Sometimes (1-2 times a week) = 1
—> Often (3-5 times a week) = 2
—> Almost always (6-7 times a week) = 3 - Participants returned the completed questionnaire via email.
- A debrief was sent afterward
Explain how you operationalised the IV in your quasi-experiment
The IV was the participant’s age; whether they are aged 20 years and under (students) or 21 years and over (teachers).
Explain how you operationalised the DV in your quasi-experiment.
The DV was the sleep quality as measured on an adapted version of the sleep quality scale (SQS) where higher scores (out of 30) indicate poorer sleep quality.
Explain one possible problem with how the independent variable was operationalised
In the student condition (20 years and under) there was a smaller age range of 2 years whereas in the teacher condition (21 years and over) the age range was 25 years.
Explain one possible problem with how the independent variable was operationalised
By only collecting quantitive data to get the sleep quality score it is not as in-depth as qualitative data s their answer has been restricted to a fixed response
State the aim of you quasi-experiment
To investigate if sleep quality as measured on an adapted version of the sleep quality scale (out of 30) varies between students (aged 20 years and under) and teachers (aged 21 years and over)
Identify whether you chose a directional or non-directional alternative hypothesis
Directional
Explain the choice of hypothesis
I chose a directional hypothesis as previous research suggested that sleep quality varies by age and that sleep quality is particularly worse in adults (teachers) then in teens (students)
Write an alternative hypothesis for your quasi-experiment
There will be a significant increase in sleep quality as measured on the adapted version of a sleep quality scale (out of 30) for students (aged 20 and under) than teachers (aged 21 and over)
Write a null hypothesis for your quasi-experiment
There will be no significant difference in sleep quality as measured by the adapted version of the sleep quality scale (out of 30) between teachers (aged 21 and over) than students (aged 20 and under)
Explain one extraneous variable that you considered in your quasi-experiment
The presence of a research whilst completing the SQS could have influenced the results as my presence may have made them answer differently to if they were alone
Explain how you managed this extraneous variable in your research
So, I carried out the quasi experiment online so that l was not present at the time of completing the sleep quality questionnaire and I was not a distraction to my participants.
Explain how one confounding variable could have influenced your quasi-experiment
Some of my participants had a psychology test the day before completing the sleep quality scale so the stress of the exam may have impacted the score that they got for the dependent variable.
Outline the location of the research in your quasi-experiment.
My study was conducted online because participants were emailed a sleep quality scale in the form of a questionnaire. They were asked to complete this and send it back to me via e-mail over the Internet.
Outline one strength of conducting research on-line in your quasi-experiment
In my study, data was collected electronically by asking people 2 complete the sleep quality scale and e-mail it back to me. This was easier for me to analyse than doing it by hand.
Outline one weakness of conducting research online in your quasi-experiment
- Research online posed ethical issues in my study with informed consent.
- Although I gave my participants a consent form to read before completing the sleep quality scale, I can only assume that my participants understood what the study involved and fully agreed to take part.
Explain the experimental design in your quasi-experiment.
We used an independent groups design as different participants took part in either the student condition or teacher condition. Therefore my participants completed only one condition based on their age.