Personal Investigation Flashcards
What is the aim of the research?
Do teenagers or adults sleep more?
What is the IV?
age
What is the operationalised IV?
age:
condition A is teens (16-18)
condition B is adults (35+)
What is the DV?
amount of sleep
What is the operationalised DV?
estimated number of hours slept in a night
What is the operationalised null hypothesis?
there will be no significant difference in the estimated number of hours slept in a night between teens (16-18) and adults (35+)
What type of hypothesis will you be writing for this research and why?
non-directional
- previous research showed very mixed results
What is the operationalised experimental hypothesis?
there will be a significant difference in the estimated number of hours slept in a night between teens (16-18) and adults (35+)
What are some possible confounding variables for our research and how will you control for them?
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
What type of experiment is this?
quasi-experiment
Why is the investigation a quasi-experiment?
the IV is naturally occurring within the participants (age)
What experimental design will be used and why is this an appropriate choice?
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
What is the target population?
staff (aged 35+) and students (aged 16-18) of all genders at Stockton Sixth Form College
What is the best sampling technique for your investigation and what does this mean?
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)
What was the procedure of what you will ask your participants to do?
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
What are 2 potential issues of reliability in your research and how could they be dealt with?
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)
What are 2 potential issues of validity in your research and how could they be dealt with?
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
What are the 3 ethical issues in your research?
- embarrassment and shame about age and amount of sleep
- privacy
- valid consent
ETHICAL ISSUE: why is embarrassment and shame about age and amount of sleep an issue?
can cause psychological distress / humiliation / anxiety
- can make the participants uncomfortable
ETHICAL ISSUE: how can you deal with the issue of embarrassment and shame about age and amount of sleep?
assure confidentiality
- explain that nobody is judging them
ETHICAL ISSUE: why is privacy an issue?
nobody should see their data or results without the participant’s consent
ETHICAL ISSUE: how can you deal with the issue of privacy?
anonymity
- replace names with a number, letter, or even their age
ETHICAL ISSUE: why is valid consent an issue?
participants may not be aware of all details of the study meaning consent isn’t valid
ETHICAL ISSUE: how can you deal with the issue of valid consent?
get participants to sign valid consent forms that involve the full nature of the research
What is the mean, median, mode and standard deviation of the average hours of sleep had by teenagers (16-18)?
mean: 7.2 hours
median: 7 hours
mode: 7 hours
SD: 1.44
What conclusions can be drawn from the mean and standard deviation of the research?
- 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
What is the mean, median, mode and standard deviation of the average hours of sleep had by adults (35+)?
mean: 7 hours
median: 7 hours
mode: 8 hours
SD: 1.21
Which type of graph would be the most appropriate for your data and why?
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
Which level of measurement was used in your research and what does this mean?
ratio
- the level of measurement that had equal intervals between scores and has an absolute or true zero point (eg speed in mph)
What statistical test would you use for your research and why?
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+)
Calculate your chosen statistical test?
U-value: 198.5
Z-score: -0.02705
critical value: 97
After comparing your observed value and critical value, are your results significant?
NOT SIGNIFICANT
- calculated value (198.5) was greater than the critical value (97) at p<=0.05
- Na = 20, Nb = 20
- two-tailed test
Which hypothesis will you accept and which will you reject and why?
- accept null
- reject experimental
- because results were not significant
What conclusions can be drawn from the findings of your research?
age has no effect on the amount of hours that people sleep
What improvement could you make about your investigation?
How would you implement the improvement?
Why would it improve the study?
- 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
