Psychology Research Methods Flashcards
What is an independent variable?
Variable researcher is manipulating such as different conditions
What is a Dependent variable?
Variable that the researcher measures
What is an extraneous variable?
Any variable that the researcher should control
What is a confounding variable?
When the variable has had an effect on the results
What is Operationalising?
Ensuring variables can be easily tested and defined to be fully understood
What is an Aim and Hypothesis?
Aim - what the researcher hopes to find
Hypothesis - Prediction based on previous research
What is an Aim and Hypothesis?
Aim - what the researcher hopes to find
Hypothesis - Prediction based on previous research
What is a One tailed Directional Hypothesis and Give an example
Predicts direction e.g. there will be an increase/decrease/more/less
What is a Two tailed non directional hypothesis and give an example
Predicts difference between variables when measuring something e.g. there will be a difference between variable A and Variable B when measuring C
What is a Lab experiment?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of this?
An experiment that has a highly controlled environment#
Advantages - Extraneous variables (cause and effect), High reliability
Disadvantages - lacks generalisability to everyday life, demand characteristics such as screw you effect
What is a field experiment and what are the advantages and disadvantages?
Experiment where IV is manipulated in a natural everyday setting
Advantages - Higher mundane realism (more natural) high external validity and ecological validity
Disadvantages - No extraneous variables (no cause and effect), low reliability, ethical issues
What is a natural experiment and what are the advantages and disadvantages?
Take advantage of IV, variable would have changed without manipulation, done in a natural environment.
Advantages - High ecological validity and external validity, opportunity for sensitive research
Disadvantages - Naturally occurring event difficult to generalise to other situations and issues of confounding variables affecting results
What is a Quasi experiment and what are the advantages and disadvantages?
IV based on difference between individuals where the variable is not manipulated.
Advantages - extraneous variables (cause and effect), high internal validity, high in reliability
Disadvantages - confounding variables as you cant randomly allocate people to a condition
What are investigator effects?
Researcher unintentionally affects the research and participants with their behaviour e.g. frowning at a participant, gender and age of researcher can also affect the experiment.
What is demand characteristics?
Cue or clue of information to help figure out the experiment and putting answers the researcher would desire.
What is ecological validity?
is it accurate to other social settings and can it be generalised to those other social settings
What is mundane realism?
Research environment is comparable to the real world
What is a self report?
When a person reports on their own feelings/ thoughts and behaviour itself
What are the strengths and weaknesses to questionairres?
Strengths - cheap, easy to use and create, ethically sound (confidentiality), can be rich in research data
Weakness - Leading questions can cause acquiescence bias, social desirability leads to response bias, screw you effect, low return rate, demand characteristics.
What is qualitative and quantitative data?
Qualitative -high in detail, mostly words e.g. life experiences
Quantitative - can be repeated, generates numbers which can be put into graphs and charts.
What is a open and closed question?
Open - participant can elaborate when answering this question
Closed - usually the participant chooses the answer
What is a structured, semi-structured and unstructured interview?
Structured - set or list of questions with no conversation or elaboration
Unstructured - interviewee asks questions about a topic and has a conversation with a participant.
Semi-structured - fixed set of questions and encouraged to elaborate
What is a naturalistic and controlled observation?
Naturalistic - observing behaviour in a natural environment
controlled - observing behaviour in a controlled and manipulated environment
What is an overt and covert observation?
Overt - participant knows they are being observed which promotes consent
Covert - Participant doesnt know they are being observed
What is a participant and non participant observation?
Participant - Researcher becomes one with the participant group
Non participant - Does not take part in situation being observed
What is primary and secondary data?
Primary - Data that is first collected by you through research
Secondary - Data already collected by a separate entity
What should be in a histogram?
Data is continuous therefore the bars should be together
What should be seen in a bar chart?
Bars are seperate to compare categories of data
What is a scattergram?
a graph that is used to find a relationship between two categories of data
What is mean, median and mode?
Mean - statistical average, add up all scores and divide by total amount of scores
Median - middle value of data set, putting them in order and finding the middle score, if there are 2 middle scores then add them together and divide by 2
Mode - Most frequent number
What is standard deviation?
A graph where the values are spread across around the mean, most powerful as it takes all measurements into account
What is a co-variable
variable in a correlation
What is a correlation co-efficient
Tells strength (how close is it to 1) and direction (+ or -) of a correlation in a graph
What are the steps for a sign test?
step 1 - convert data to nominal data by + - or = e.g. 100-122 is negative
step 2 - Total up the + and - then disregard the =
step 3 - identify calculated value that is the least frequent sign known as S
step 4 - compare S value to critical value table, find out if the hypothesis is non directional or one directional, remember accepted level of probability which is 0.05
What is a repeated Measures experimental design?
Same participants used in both conditions (order effect)
What is an independent groups experimental design
Participants allocated to different groups representing seperate conditions (cant control variables in participants)
What is a matched pairs design?
participants are closely matched and placed into certain conditions. (time consuming)
What are order effects and how can it be managed?
Order effects are where you perform better or know more about an experiment as you have experienced and practiced it before. This can be seen in repeated measures experimental design.
Order effects can be managed through counterbalancing to create equal effect in both conditions by changing those conditions. This can be done by switching the order of the conditions done.
What is Oppurtunity Sampling?
Participants are sampled when they are available such as a person who is not at work.
What is a random sample?
Sample where participants are randomly grabbed usually to fill a quota of a target population
What is a stratified sample?
Selecting participants based on a subgroup of characteristics e.g. age or gender.
What is a systematic sample?
Collecting every nth person to avoid bias in a target population e.g. 5th 15th 25th 35th
What is a volunteer sample?
A sample where participants actively volunteer for your research. This is usually done if theyre interested or if they are going to be rewarded.
What is a biased Sample?
Systematic distortion in the collection of participants which is usually done based on judgement which lowers generalisability and representiveness.
What is generalisation?
Applying findings of a study to the general population making an assumption of the population.
What is internal validity?
accuracy of data within the experiment
What is external Validity?
How accurate research is outside of research
What is ecological, population and temporal validity?
ecological - how accurate it is to social environments
Population - How accurate it is to views of the general population.
Temporal - How accurate it is to the current time period
What are investigator Effects?
Cues from investigator to encourage certain behaviour
What is demand characteristics?
Behaviour that is thought to be demanded so you can be helpful to the researcher
What is social desirability effects?
Giving answers desirable by the researcher
What is a single blind and double blind procedure?
Single blind procedure - Patients are unaware of the test being conducted
Double Blind procedure - Participants and researcher unaware of the test being conducted
What is a Pilot Study?
Small scale study done to find problems with experimental design, instructions and the methods, can also check for ethical issues.
What are the main ethical issues?
Deception, protection from harm, confidentiality, right to withdraw data and privacy
What can be done to deal with ethical issues?
Deception - Debriefing
Protection from harm - Stop study and compensate the participant and give them help.
Right to Withdraw - Inform participant at the start, middle and end of study to withdraw data if needed.
informed consent - Fully explain research intentions
Privacy/confidentiality - Avoid using names in study, dont study unless there is informed consent.
What is time sampling and event sampling in an observational design?
Time sample - recording behaviours in a given time frame
Event - recording behaviours during a certain event
What are the strengths and weaknesses to time sampling and event sampling
Time - less time consuming due to less observation however it may not be representative of target population.
Event - Useful in recording occasional behaviour however certain behaviours may be too hard to record, also time consuming.
How can you assess reliability for observations, self-report techniques and experiments?
Observations - use multiple observers and record evidence for inter-observer reliability. Can be fixed if categories are operationalised
Self report techniques - test retest, reduce ambiguity of questions
Experiments - test retest or blind procedures
What is retest reliability?
used to assess reliability of questionairres by assessing someone on two seperate occasions.
What is face validity?
whether the measure is determined to measure what it is supposed to measure.
What is concurrent validity?
extent to which a psychological measure relates to an existing similar measure
What are the steps for content analysis?
1) what data will you select
2) how you code your data e.g. behavioural categories
3) how is the data represented e.g. is it numerical or worded
What is Nominal Data
Data where something is named e.g. gender such as male or female
What is Ordinal Data
Data where behaviour is ranked and categorised
What is interval data
Data which is continous and the difference is standardised and meaningful
What is Empiricability as a feature of science?
Use of controlled, objective, quantitative observation to prove a theory
What is objectivity as a feature of science?
When research is free from bias or personal opinion and is not subjective.
What is replicability as a feature of science?
Are the results reliable and will you get the same answer if done again
What is Falsifiability?
Whether an experiment can be proven false, is testable and can be measured objectively.
What is a paradigm shift?
When there has been massive changes in a concept or experimental method.
