Practical Investigations Flashcards
What is an abstract?
A summary of the background theory/research, aims, hypothesis, method, results and discussion.
What goes in to the introduction?
An overview of the related theories and related research in the topic area. Should link to the study aims and hypothesis.
What was the introduction of the social practical investigation?
This study looks into how gender affcets obedience. In prior research it can be seen that there is no significant difference in levels of obedience between males and females. Both Milgram (1963) and Burger (2009) found no significant difference in obedience between gender.
Theories of obedience suggest that gender does not have an effect on obedience. The authoritarian personality theory says that it is a persons background that influences their personality and therefore obedience. This suggests obedience isn’t affected by gender. The social impact theory suggests it is the presence of an authority figure that affects obedience. Gender has no affect.
What is the aim of the social practical investigation? What are the variables being investigated?
To investigate gender differences in obedience using a questionnaire
- Gender
- Level of obedience determined by score on a questionnaire
Give the alternative and null hypotheses of the social practical investigation. Which one did we accept?
Alternative: There will be a significant difference in levels of obedience between males and females
Null: There will not be a significant difference in obedience levels between mles and females
We accepted our null lypothesis.
Describe the method of the social practical investigation. Include research method, participants, sampling method, apparatus and controls.
Method: a written questionnaire
Participants: 5 male and 5 female participants, all students from Stourbridge aged between 16-18
Sampling method: opportunity
Apparatus: the written questionnaire containing open and cosed questions, a likurt scale and distracter questions
Controls: each participant had 10 minutes to complete it and the questions were the same, in the same order for each participant.
Describe the procedure of the social practical investigation.
- Approach participants and ask them if they’d be willing to take part
- Explain what the research aim is and the ethics, that they have the right to withdraw etc
- Give the participants the questionnaire to answer for themselves, allowing them only 10 minutes to complete.
- Debrief telling them the true aim and checking for harm
Give some quantative results of the social practical investigation.
Median scores for males and females is 5 and the range for both is 2. The mean score for males is 5.2 and the mean score for females is 5.8
Give some qualitative results of the social practical investigation.
Q3) What is your opinion on why we have college rules?
Males answeres: for safety, depends on the situations, a positive thing
Females answered: Important, help to maintain order, depends on the situations
What is the conclusion of the social practican investigation?
Based on the qualitative and quantitative data, there is no significant difference in obedience between males and females. We therefore accept our null hypothesis.
Evaluate the social practical investigation in terms of generalisability.
Our sample is not very generalisable. The sample consisted of only ten participants, five in each condition and the sample was particularly narrow as the participants were all at the same sixth form and were all aged between 16 and 18. The sample is too small to generalise from and also is too narrow to be applied to other groups of society.
Evaluate the social practical investigation in terms of reliability.
There was a standardised procedure with standardised questions and instructions. Each participant was given the same questions to answer and instructed that they would have ten minutes to complete it. This meant that the study is repeatable to gain similar results.
Inter-rater reliability can be established as 3 researchers all agreed on the thematic analysis together. This reduces the researcher bias and reliability.
Evaluate the social practical investigation in terms of validity.
Open questions were used. This allows for a greater depth and level of detail to be found. Therefore the analysis is more detailed and valid.
Could be seen to lack validity. Due to the research method being a questionnaire, there is a risk of socail desireability bias.
Evaluate the social practical investigation in terms of ethics.
Informed consent, debrief and right to withdraw.
Confidentiality as no personla details or names were collected.
What was the introduction of the cognitive practical investigation?
The topic area is memory. Memory is regarded as the mental function of retaining information about stimuli, events, images, ideas etc after the original stimuli is no longer present.
The multi-store model of memory has three main componants; sensory information, short term memory and long term memory. It states that information must flow through these stages in order.
Glanzar and Cunitz (1966) gave participants a list of words that they were asked to recall either immediately or delayed. They found that the delayed group only remembered the words at the end of the list due to displacement. Primacy and recency effect.
Peterson and Peterson found that if reharsal is prevented over 30 seconds, information will be forgotten.
What is the aim of the cognitive practical investigation? What are the variables being investigated?
To investigate how in the multi-store model of memory, rehearsal is important for the transfer of information from STM to LTM.
- (IV) Amount of reheasal- in one condition, the participants will be shown the words for two minutes, show again for two minutes making them read outloud. In the second condition the reading is replaced by simple maths sums.
- (DV) Memory recall- score on the number of words correctly remembered.
Give the alternative and null hypotheses of the cognitive practical investigation.
Alternative: There will be significantly more words recalled when rehearsal is allowed then when word rehearsal is prevented.
Null: there will be no significant difference in umber of words recalled when rehearsal is allowed then when rehearsal is prevented. Any differences will be due to chance.
Describe the method of the social practical investigation. Include research method, participants, sampling method, apparatus and controls.
Research method: repeated measures
Participants: 16 students aged 16-18
Sampling method: opportunity
Apparatus: two different word lists, a sheet of maths sums, a stopwatch, paper and a pen.
Controls: If they are psychology students or not, recieve the same instructions, ensure that the environment isn’t too noisy.