Personal Investigation

Question 1

What is the aim of the research?

Answer 1

Do teenagers or adults sleep more?

Question 2

What is the IV?

Answer 2

age

Question 3

What is the operationalised IV?

Answer 3

age:
condition A is teens (16-18)
condition B is adults (35+)

Question 4

What is the DV?

Answer 4

amount of sleep

Question 5

What is the operationalised DV?

Answer 5

estimated number of hours slept in a night

Question 6

What is the operationalised null hypothesis?

Answer 6

there will be no significant difference in the estimated number of hours slept in a night between teens (16-18) and adults (35+)

Question 7

What type of hypothesis will you be writing for this research and why?

Answer 7

non-directional
- previous research showed very mixed results

Question 8

What is the operationalised experimental hypothesis?

Answer 8

there will be a significant difference in the estimated number of hours slept in a night between teens (16-18) and adults (35+)

Question 9

What are some possible confounding variables for our research and how will you control for them?

Answer 9

if participant has a baby / child at home, the data is not valid:
- could be a sibling, their own child
- could be woken up in the night and disrupts their sleep

to control:
- ask participants if they live in a house with babies or small children (3 years old or younger)
- if yes, thank them for their time and don not include them in the findings

Question 10

What type of experiment is this?

Answer 10

quasi-experiment

Question 11

Why is the investigation a quasi-experiment?

Answer 11

the IV is naturally occurring within the participants (age)

Question 12

What experimental design will be used and why is this an appropriate choice?

Answer 12

independent groups design
- it is the only design that can be used because age is the IV, therefore the same participants can’t take part in both the ‘teens’ and ‘adults’ conditions
- participants can either take part in one age group or the other

Question 13

What is the target population?

Answer 13

staff (aged 35+) and students (aged 16-18) of all genders at Stockton Sixth Form College

Question 14

What is the best sampling technique for your investigation and what does this mean?

Answer 14

opportunity sampling
- this is where participants are selected at the researcher’s convenience without knowing any details about the sample in advance (eg picking people who were there at the time, in your specific location)

Question 15

What was the procedure of what you will ask your participants to do?

Answer 15

1) approach member of target population
2) ask them for their time and brief them
3) brief: ‘I’m doing a study on sleep and age. Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?’
4) assure confidentiality
5) assure of right to withdraw data and their information
6) all participants will be asked:
- age
- if they have babies or young children at home (if yes, not needed)
7) all participants are asked: ‘on an average night, how many hours of sleep would you say you get?’
8) note down age and response
9) repeat until you have 20 pieces of data for adults and 20 pieces of data for teens

Question 16

What are 2 potential issues of reliability in your research and how could they be dealt with?

Answer 16

1) participants are asked about how much sleep they get: might differ, resulting in unreliable estimations
- dealt with by asking all participants the same question ‘on an average night, how many hours of sleep would you say you get?’

2) the amount of sleep may be recorded differently by the researcher for different participants
- dealt with by operationalising the amount of sleep precisely (hours per night)

Question 17

What are 2 potential issues of validity in your research and how could they be dealt with?

Answer 17

1) social desirability bias (lots of judgement around how we sleep)
- dealt with by promising that results will be kept confidential and anonymous, assuring right to withdraw data, and ask participants on a 1-to-1 basis

2) demand characteristics (participants could give an artificially high or low answer)
- dealt with by not telling them the aim and debrief them afterwards

Question 18

What are the 3 ethical issues in your research?

Answer 18

• embarrassment and shame about age and amount of sleep
• privacy
• valid consent

Question 19

ETHICAL ISSUE: why is embarrassment and shame about age and amount of sleep an issue?

Answer 19

can cause psychological distress / humiliation / anxiety
- can make the participants uncomfortable

Question 20

ETHICAL ISSUE: how can you deal with the issue of embarrassment and shame about age and amount of sleep?

Answer 20

assure confidentiality
- explain that nobody is judging them

Question 21

ETHICAL ISSUE: why is privacy an issue?

Answer 21

nobody should see their data or results without the participant’s consent

Question 22

ETHICAL ISSUE: how can you deal with the issue of privacy?

Answer 22

anonymity
- replace names with a number, letter, or even their age

Question 23

ETHICAL ISSUE: why is valid consent an issue?

Answer 23

participants may not be aware of all details of the study meaning consent isn’t valid

Question 24

ETHICAL ISSUE: how can you deal with the issue of valid consent?

Answer 24

get participants to sign valid consent forms that involve the full nature of the research

Question 25

What is the mean, median, mode and standard deviation of the average hours of sleep had by teenagers (16-18)?

Answer 25

mean: 7.2 hours median: 7 hours mode: 7 hours SD: 1.44

Question 26

What conclusions can be drawn from the mean and standard deviation of the research?

Answer 26

- there is more variation in the teenager group compared to the adult group, which is shown through the higher level of standard deviation - the mean for both groups shows that teenagers get more sleep on an average night than adults

Question 27

What is the mean, median, mode and standard deviation of the average hours of sleep had by adults (35+)?

Answer 27

mean: 7 hours median: 7 hours mode: 8 hours SD: 1.21

Question 28

Which type of graph would be the most appropriate for your data and why?

Answer 28

bar chart - a bar chart of the means (of both teens 16-18 and adults 35+) is discrete data - this means there are no overlaps since participants are either in one group or the other

Question 29

Which level of measurement was used in your research and what does this mean?

Answer 29

ratio - the level of measurement that had equal intervals between scores and has an absolute or true zero point (eg speed in mph)

Question 30

What statistical test would you use for your research and why?

Answer 30

Mann Whitney U - data was ratio (hours of sleep measured on a universal scale that has an absolute zero, you can't sleep minus hours) - independent groups and different participants were in the young condition compared to the old condition - testing for a difference in hours of sleep in young (teens 16-18) and old (adults 35+)

Question 31

Calculate your chosen statistical test?

Answer 31

U-value: 198.5 Z-score: -0.02705 critical value: 97

Question 32

After comparing your observed value and critical value, are your results significant?

Answer 32

NOT SIGNIFICANT - calculated value (198.5) was greater than the critical value (97) at p<=0.05 - Na = 20, Nb = 20 - two-tailed test

Question 33

Which hypothesis will you accept and which will you reject and why?

Answer 33

- accept null - reject experimental - because results were not significant

Question 34

What conclusions can be drawn from the findings of your research?

Answer 34

age has no effect on the amount of hours that people sleep

Question 35

What improvement could you make about your investigation? How would you implement the improvement? Why would it improve the study?

Answer 35

- participants could be inaccurate because they are guessing how many hours of sleep they got - use an electronic sleep tracker to measure how much sleep participants get a night - would affect the validity as we would have a more accurate, trustworthy measure of sleep