Practical Investigation - BIOLOGICAL

Question 1

What was the title of our biological practical?

Answer 1

There is no correlation between an open personality and an individuals attitude towards recreational drugs

Question 2

What was the abstract of our biological practical?

Answer 2

Is personality a factor in whether an individual is more/less likely to take recreational drugs? 12 participants completed the BF15 personality questions and accompanying questionnaire. Their attitude was measured with a series of questions. There was no correlation between open personality scores and attitude towards recreational drugs.This suggests there is no link between recreational drug use and type of personality an individual has.However there are doubts on the validity of the measurements obtained in this study.

Question 3

What was the aim of our biological practical?

Answer 3

to find out whether there was a link between personality traits and the likelihood of an individual taking recreational drugs.

Question 4

Why did we choose our aim of our biological practical?

Answer 4

It is claimed that the more open minded you are, the more likely you are to try recreational drugs or have a more positive attitude towards recreational drugs.In this investigation, attitude towards drugs was measured using a self report questionnaire a it allows for an unbiased point of view

Question 5

How did we check an individual’s attitude towards recreational drugs?

Answer 5

This is done by using a series of open ended questions to assess an individual’s attitude towards recreational drugs.If openness does lead to a positive attitude towards recreational drugs, there should be a correlation between personality and attitude scores.

Question 6

What was our alternative hypothesis?

Answer 6

There will be a positive correlation between an open personality and attitudes towards recreational drugs

Question 7

What was our null hypothesis?

Answer 7

There will be no correlation between an open personality and attitude towards recreational drugs.

Question 8

What was the design of our biological practical?

Answer 8

Correlational design with two co-variables

Question 9

What were the two co-variables of our biological practical?

Answer 9

Attitudes towards recreational drugs, operationalised by a self report questionnaire
Openness, operationalised as scores on the BFI Scale.

Question 10

How were extraneous variables controlled in our biological practical?

Answer 10

Extraneous variables were controlled by standardising the procedure including the conditions under which the questionnaire was given and the instructions given to the participants.

Question 11

What was our sample like for our biological practical?

Answer 11

The participants were a sample of 12 female students from a selective school in the Midlands. Their mean age was 16 years. They came from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. - chosen from experimenters’ friends and family

Question 12

What materials did we use for our biological practical?

Answer 12

A Questionnaire using the ___ Scale and the BFI scale. A Google Sheets was also required to confirm data and program it into a spreadsheet.

Question 13

What was the procedure like for our biological practical?

Answer 13

The nature of the experiment was explained with information given about what was measured (attitudes towards recreational drugs and relationships with personality) with its anonymity, and following an ethical briefing, they asked to take part in the experiment using a standardised script.

Those who agreed to do so were given a copy of the questionnaire electronically through email and we deselected the button so that responses could not be identified by emails; they were then to complete it with standardised instructions.

Participants completed the questionnaire and were debriefed on what they had then taken part through a standardised script. They were ethically debriefed and given an email address to post any inquiries they had about the experiment.

Question 14

What were the results of our biological practical?

Answer 14

They were analysed by Google Sheets software, where incomplete questionnaire responses were removed from the data.
The scores were calculated through a scale where attitudes were from 0-5 and personality was from 1-7.

The mean personality score was 6.7

Question 15

What did the scatter graph show about our results of the biological practical?

Answer 15

There was no correlation between personality and attitude towards recreational drug scores

Question 16

What was the generalisability like for our biological practical?

Answer 16

Low: Small sample restricted by age and gender (only one male ppt) though high in terms of ethnicity.

Question 17

What could we do to improve the generalisability of our biological practical?

Answer 17

Repeating with a larger, more representative sample should produce different results - varied in terms of gender and age which would make it more representative of the wider population

Question 18

What was the replicability like for our biological practical?

Answer 18

High as variables were controlled - standardised procedure and standardised instructions used throughout meaning all told to fill it in the same manner - replicable by other researchers

Question 19

What was the objectivity like for our biological practical?

Answer 19

Standardised measure of personality using OCEAN model so unnecessary to judge ppts personality traits

Possibility of bias - method lacked precision and ppts could’ve double guessed themselves or responding in consistently pleasing but not accurate

Question 20

How could we improve objectivity for our biological practical?

Answer 20

More distanced questions to increase accuracy as there aren’t similar questions bunched together and makes ppts more likely to read each question

Question 21

What was the validity like for our biological practical?

Answer 21

All in natural setting (high ecological validity) and no follow up questions (clear questionnaire)

Uncontaminated by researcher bias - accurate results but some may have answered consistently = less valid as less accurate

Question 22

How could we improve our validity for our biological practical?

Answer 22

More distanced questions to increase accuracy as there aren’t similar questions bunched together and makes ppts more likely to read each question

Question 23

What was ethics like for our biological practical?

Answer 23

High - all fully informed of relevant considerations (consent given) and debriefed - unlikely emotional state of ppts changed over the course of the study