Personal Investigation 2 Flashcards
Title
A non-participant observation of mobile phone use
IV
Male and female students based on outward identification
DV
Mobile phone use
0=no use
1=brief use
2=frequent use
Confounding variables
Low battery
Expecting important message/call
New phone rule
Alternative hypothesis
There will be a difference in the frequency of mobile phone use in females and males during social interactions
Null hypothesis
There will be no difference in the frequency of mobile phone use in females and males during social interactions any changes will be sue to chance
Methodology
Field
Most appropriate as observing in common room. Phones most likely used here so desired behaviour occurs
Sampling
Target-sixth form students
Frame-notre dame sixth form students in common room at social times
Opportunity sampling-P’s we could get at the time other methods include gaining informed consent
Ethics
Privacy-announcement sent out so they are aware of what we are doing
Confidentiality-no names used
Deception-minimise we send announcement and debrief
Right to withdraw- not given but names not used so don’t know data’s theirs
Harm-experience stress/anxiety. A person on lookout incase of this
Reliability
Internal- inter rater reliability
External- test retest
Validity
Researcher bias consciously/ unconsciously already have an idea on what results will look like
Could do double blind
Descriptive statistics
Mode
Frequency table
Histogram
Inferential statistics
Chi-squared
The observed value is less than the critical value so the results are non significant because for this test the observed value had to be greater than the critical value (two tailed p<0.05) accept bull reject alternative
Conclusion
No significant difference between males and females and there frequency of mobile phone use
Ways to improve
The categories are subjective could have been more specific
Might have missed events so could have used CCTV
