Practical Flashcards
Aim
To investigate number of participants who responded correctly and incorrectly when asked a leading question (did you see the gun?) compared to a non leading question (did you see a gun?) in eye witness recall
State the fully operationalized alternative hypothesis
There will be a significantly higher number of participants who answer incorrectly (yes) to the leading question (did you see the gun) compared to the non-leading question (did you see a gun)
State the fully operationalized null hypothesis
There will be no significant difference in the number of participants who answered incorrectly (yes) to the leading question (did you see the gun?) compared to the non-leading question (did you see a gun). Any difference will be due to chance
Sample
16 participants from King Edwards College, Stourbridge
Age 17-18
Sampling method
Opportunity
Participant design?
Independent measures
Procedure
Looked for a video of non-emotive crime and found a burglary of a jewellery store without any weapons
Compiled a list of 10 non-leading questions and 1 leading question (did you see the gun?) which changed to “did you see a gun?” for the control group
The 16 students were given an overview of the study which showed their ethical considerations and informed consent was gained
They were shown a 1 min 30 second video of the jewellery heist on a mobile phone that was followed by a list of 10 questions
The controls received 10 non-leading questions and the experimental group received 9 non-leading questions, with 1 leading question (did you see the gun?) being the 6th question
Only interested in 6th question in which an incorrect answer was “yes” and the correct answer was “no” for both conditions
Participants were only told the aim after they completed questionnaire to avoid demand characteristics and were then debriefed and gave opportunity to withdraw
Results
3/16 answered yes to leading questionnaire
11/16 answered no o the leading and non-leading question
Chi-squared value = 0.29 which was not significant due to being lower than critical value 2.71 at a value of p<0.05
Null hypothesis is accepted and any differences were due to chance
Conclusions
Doesn’t follow the trend of previous research done by Loftus and Palmer (1974) who would leading questions affect recall
Support Yuille and Cutshall (1986) who found no affect of leading questions on accuracy of recall
Generalisability
HIGH - Used opportunity sample - representative of witnesses who all happen to be there at scene
LOW - Only 16 students from Stourbridge - can’t represent other populations (other ages and places)
Reliability
HIGH - Standardized procedure - same questions in order with the leading question in 6th place for each participant = easy to replicate and achieve same results
HIGH - Questionnaire produced quantitative data of “yes” or “no” = scientific and can be interpreted by other researchers due to objectivity
Applications
YES - showed that leading questions didn’t affect accuracy of recall from a 1 min 30 second video of a jewellery store robbery - suggests police should be made aware of the possible influence of leading questions as other research has suggested a correlation
Validity
LOW - Low ecological - watched video of robbery on a mobile phone in a controlled environment - not natural environment of a real crime scene so won’t reflect real life EWT
LOW - Low task - participants answered a 10 question questionnaire with the 6th question being leading (did you see the gun?) or non-leading (did you see a gun?) - participants were aware of being in a study so doesn’t reflect real recall of information in EWT
Ethics
SOUND - Was a video so would cause less psychological harm and distress compared to a staged crime
UNETHICAL - Deceived by not knowing true aims of study - would not have given full informed consent
