Problems with experiments Flashcards
What are the different types of extraneous variables?
Participant vs situational
What are participant extraneous variables?
Ways in which p’s vary from each other and how it can affect results
Examples of participant extraneous variables?
mood, intelligence, anxiety/nerves, concentration, age, motivation, personality and gender
What are situational extraneous variables?
The environment that my affect participants behaviour
Examples of situational variables?
temperature/weather, noise, lighting and time of day
How can we control extraneous variables?
-Standardising procedures
-Randomisation
What is a standardising a procedure, and how do we do it?
Standardising a procedure is that p’s are researcher are doing the exact same things within a study
-We can do this by giving p’s the exact same instructions either written or recorded
What are individual differences?
A natural variation between p’s meaning they will
perform/behave differently in experiments, possibly effecting outcomes
-Can never be completely eliminated can be minimised
What are demand characteristics?
occur when p’s guess the aim of the study and therefore alter their behaviour
How can demand characteristics affect a study?
-Screw or please you effect
-Acting unnatural and nervous
-Act unnaturally due to social desirability
How can we get rid of demand characteristics?
-single bind procedure
What is a single blind procedure?
P’s dont know which condition their in so therefor dont know how to act
What are investigator effects?
Occurs when researcher accidentally influence result of the research
How can investigator effects be displayed?
-Physical characteristics e.g. attractive researcher
-Accent
-Accidental bias
How can we reduce investigator effects?
A double blind procedure
