Practical Issues in Psychological Research

Question 1

What are the problems with sampling as a practical Issue?

Answer 1

• Some ppts may be found more easily than others.
• May be time consuming and expensive to gather appropriate sample.
• Sample may not be representative and bias free.

Question 2

How are variables used in practical Issues?

Answer 2

• Deciding on how to measure variables are difficult.
• Must have an cause and effect relationship between variables through minimising EVs can be time consuming and costly.
• The data gathered must be available and be able to be gathered.

Question 3

What are the problems with methadology as a practical Issue?

Answer 3

• Having the resources and money to carry out the procedures.
• Deciding on the right method for the topic being studied.
• Deciding on the control group/ Decide whether the appropriate data collection tools may be limited

Question 4

How are materials used in practical Issues?

Answer 4

• may need a recording device if using an observation or paper if it is memory

Question 5

How are data collection tools used in practical Issues?

Answer 5

• Practical Investigation involves preparing data collection tools so you can draw on your own experiences when considering issue

Question 6

How do you data bias in practical Issues?

Answer 6

• consider demand characteristics of the study and aim to avoid them by not making the purpose of the study obvious.

Question 7

How do you collect the data and prepare it for analysis in practical Issues?

Answer 7

• deciding whether an observation will be participant, non-participant, covert or overt. Preparing the data for analysis - how the data will take place and how you will display the data

Question 8

What is generalisability?

Answer 8

• Is the application of the results from a study, to the wider target population

Question 9

What is reliability?

Answer 9

• Is a measure of whether something stays the same, i.e. Consistent.

Question 10

What is internal reliability?

Answer 10

• This describes the internal consistency of a measure.

Question 11

What is external reliability?

Answer 11

• Refers to extent to which a measures varies from one use to another

Question 12

what is test re-test reliability?

Answer 12

• A measure of whether something varies from one time to another

Question 13

What is inter-rate reliability?

Answer 13

• Degree of agreement between raters/observers

Question 14

What is validity?

Answer 14

• Refers to whether a study is measuring the behaviour it tends to measure.

Question 15

What is Internal validity?

Answer 15

• How well the procedure establishes a cause and effect relationship

Question 16

What is construct validity?

Answer 16

• how well the measure is being used is a useful indicator of what is supposed to be studied

Question 17

What is predictive validity?

Answer 17

• The extent to which the performance on the measure can predict future performance on a similar criterion

Question 18

What is Triangulation?

Answer 18

• Using multiple studies on the same topic and comparing results

Question 19

What is external validity?

Answer 19

• how well the study applies to real life

Question 20

what is population validity?

Answer 20

• the extent to which findings apply to other populations than those used as the sample.

Question 21

what is ecological validity?

Answer 21

• Refers to the extent to which the research can be generalised to real life/everyday situations.

Question 22

what is mundane realism?

Answer 22

• the extent to which the task reflects ordinary life.

Question 23

what is objectivity?

Answer 23

• Is a feature of science and is something is objective it is not affected by the personal feelings and experiences of the researcher.

Question 24

what is subjectivity?

Answer 24

• Refers to when the findings are affected by personal feelings, prejudice and interpretations.

Question 25

what is credibility?

Answer 25

• refers to the objective and subjective components of the believably of a source piece of research

Question 26

What are the main topic areas in cognitive psychology?

Answer 26

→ Lab experiments
→ Case Studies
→Baddeley (1966)

Question 27

How are lab experiments used in practical Issues?

Answer 27

• (G): Low practical Issues in representing due to memory being considered universal.
• (R): Low practical Issues due to standardised procedures meaning they are easy to replicate.
• (V): Low practical Issues due to control of extraneous variables meaning cause and effects can be establised.
• (V): High Practical Issues ensuring variables are controlled as may cost time and money.
• (V): High Practical Issues with ecological validity as it doesn’t take place in a natural setting so memory won’t reflect that of real life.

Question 28

How are case studies used in practical Issues?

Answer 28

• (G): High practical issues as brain damaged patients can’t represent memory of the wider population.
• (R): Low practical Issues due to brain scanning techniques that can be compared quickly and easily due to objectivity.
• (R): High Practical Issues due to being unethical to replicate situations that impaired people’s memories due to the circumstances it occurred under (e.g. brain damage). - (V): High Practical Issues due to the rich in-depth gathered being harder to analyse.

Question 29

How is Baddeley (1966) used in practical Issues?

Answer 29

• (G): Low practical Issues in representing due to memory being considered universal.
• (R): Low practical Issues due to using standardised procedures that can be easily replicated to test for consistency.
• (R): Low practical Issues due to using quantitative data that is easy to measure and takes less time to analyse and compare.
• (A): Useful to society due to finding that the STM encodes acoustically and LTM encodes semantically which helps students when revising to take semantic and no acoustic links.
• (V): High Practical Issues due to control over EVs as in lab based conditions allowing to establish cause and effect costing time and money.
• (V): High practical Issues with task as ppts had to recall a list of 10 words that doesn’t reflect memory in real life.

Question 30

What are the main topics in Social Psychology?

Answer 30

→ Lab experiements
→ Questionaires
→ Sherif (1954)

Question 31

How is lab experiments used in practical Issues?

Answer 31

• (G) - High practical issues due to volunteers sharing characteristics that makes it hard to represent the wider population
• (R) - Low practical issues due to standardised procedures meaning there are limited practical issues in replication
• (V) - High practical issues as control over EVs means cause and effect to establish something affecting obedience or prejudice costing time and money
• (V) - High practical issues with ecological validity as doesn’t take place in natural setting so obedience/prejudice won’t reflect the same behaviour in real life
• (V)- High practical issues with task validity as in Milgram’s experiment obedience was operationalised as administering an increase in shock voltage
• (E) - High practical issues due to being unethical as experiments into obedience and prejudice can cause psychological distress (e.g. Milgram) in which time and money would have to be used to follow up ppts

Question 32

How are Questionaires used in practical Issues?

Answer 32

• G - High practical issues due to low response rate with those who do respond sharing traits that wouldn’t represent wider population
• R - Low practical issues due to mainly using quantitative data that can be easily analysed and compared quickly
• R - High practical issues in replicating the questionnaires on a mass scale and distributing them to test for consistency
• V - High practical issues due to self-report open to many biases such as social desirability and acquiescence
• V - High practical issues due to using some open questions that take longer to compare and analyse with subjectivity in analysis

Question 33

How is Sherif (1954) used in practical Issues?

Answer 33

• G - High practical issues due to using 22 11 year old boys from Oklahoma that can’t be generalised to girls or other countries
• R - Low practical issues due to using standardised procedure that can be easily replicated to test for consistency
• A - Results were useful to society due to finding that prejudice can be removed/reduced through superordinate goals
• V - Low practical issues due to being field experiment that is natural to the ppts and so their behaviour will reflect that of what it would be in real life
• V - High practical issues due to the boys being matched on IQ and sporting ability which removes ppt variables and so will have taken time to do
• V - High practical issues due to the study only lasting 2 weeks and so prejudice doesn’t reflect the complexity in real life
• V - High practical issues due to being field experiment with limited control over EVs and so cause and effect cannot be established