Research designs Flashcards
Research design
Overall strategy that a researcher chooses to investigate the research problem and test their hypothesis (may influence the validity of a study)
Repeated measures design
Where you have one sample of participants that receives each condition of an experiment (participant variables are controlled – individual only compared to him or herself, often not possible to use same material for both conditions)
Concurrently
At the same time
Order effects
E.g boredom, fatigue or practice effect
Practice effect
When a participant gets better at something because they keep doing it
Counter-balancing
When on group starts with condition A then B and vice versa
Demand characteristics
When participants form an interpretation of the experiment’s purpose and subconsciously change their behaviour to fit that interpretation
The expectancy effect
When participants try to do what they think the researcher wants them to do
Screw-you-effect
the participant attempts to discern the experimenter’s hypotheses, but only in order to destroy the credibility of the study
Confounding variable
an unmeasured variable that may unintentionally affect the outcome of a research study (lower the internal validity of an experiment, making it less clear whether it was actually the independent variable that influenced the dependent variable)
Independent samples design
Members of the sample are randomly allocated to one condition of the experiment (order effects are controlled since each participant only experiences one condition, demand characteristics are less likely, same materials can be used BUT participant variability may influence)
Matched pairs design
An independent samples design in which participants are not randomly allocated conditions (usually pretested with regards to the variables – lessen chance that participant variability will affect the results)
