Research Issues, Chapter 6, 2 Flashcards
What is an extraneous variable?
Any variable other than the independent variable, that may affect the dependent variable, if it is not controlled. EVs are essentially nuisance variables that do not vary systematically with the IV
What are confounding variables?
A kind of EV but the key feature is that a confounding variable varies systematically with the IV . Therefore we can’t tell if any change in the DV is due to the IV or the confounding variable
What are demand characteristics?
Any cue from the researcher or from the research situation that may be interpreted by participants as revealing the purpose of an investigation. This may lead to a participant changing their behaviour within the research situation
What are investigator effects?
Any effect of the investigator’s behaviour (conscious or unconscious)on the research outcome (the DV). This may include everything from the design of the study to the selection of and interaction with, participants during the research process
What is randomisation?
The use of chance methods to control for the effects of bias when designing materials and deciding the order of experimental conditions
What is standardisation?
Using exactly the same formalised procedures and instructions for all participants in a research study
What is the key to an experiment?
An independent variable is manipulated to see how this affects the dependent variable. The only thing that should influence the DV is the IV. Other variables should be controlled or removed
What are examples of extraneous variables?
Many EVs are straightforward to control e.g.
The age of the participants, the lighting in the lab, etc.
What is a significant extraneous variable?
Participant reactivity
How may the participants react to demand characteristics?
They may act in a way that they think is expected and overperform to please the experimenter ( the ‘please-U effect’)
They may deliberately underperform to sabotage the results of the study (the ‘screw- U effect’)
Participant behaviour is no longer natural, affects the DV
What can participant reactivity also lead to?
Investigator effects
What is an example of an investigator effect in the energy drink experiment?
Smiling during recording some participants than others, we have be unknowingly encouraging a greater level of chattiness from the energy drink participants
Who and what was pointed out about the investigator effect?
Hugh Coolican (2006) points out that this can include expectancy effects and unconscious cues
It might also refer to any actions of the researcher that were related to the study’s design( e.g. selection of participants, materials, instructions, etch..)
How can we incorporate randomisation into the energy drink experiment?
We may want to know what quantity of SpeedUpp causes chattiness
We may set up four experimental conditions: drinking water (Condition A), drinking 100ml of SpeedUpp (Condition B), drinking 200ml of SpeedUpp (Condition C), drinking 300ml of SpeedUpp (Condition D)
What is an example of randomisation?
A memory experiment may involve participants recalling words from a list.
The order of the list should be randomly generated so that the position of each word is not decided by the researcher
