Research Methods Flashcards
When would you use a Directional (one-tailed) hypothesis?
When previous research predicts a likely direction of the results
When would you use a Non-Directional (two-tailed) hypothesis?
When previous research gives confounding results
What is a Null Hypothesis?
States there will be no effect of an independent variable on the dependent variable
How do you draw a bar chart?
Rectangular squares however they do not touch each other
What is the independent variable?
The thing that you change
What is the dependent variable?
The thing that you measure
What is meant by the term operalisation?
Clearly define variables so they are testable/measurable
What is independent groups?
Involves different groups doing each condition
What is repeated measures?
Involves one group doing all conditions
What is matched pairs?
Where people are put together on similar aspects (such as age, gender, IQ) that are pre-tested and put in to separate groups. Each group experiences one level of the IV.
What are the advantages of independent groups?
Participants less likely to guess the aim and change their behaviour accordingly
What are the disadvantages of independent groups?
As the groups contain different people, their individual differences might influence the results
What are the advantages of repeated measures?
By using the same participants in all conditions, there are no individual differences to act as a confounding variable
What are the disadvantages of repeated measures?
By doing the experiment more than once in different conditions, the participants may be affected by order effects
What are the advantages of matched pairs?
By matching the groups in each condition on key participant variables, the influence of individual differences should be significantly reduced
What are the disadvantages of matched pairs?
Despite some control, it is impossible to remove all individual differences
What is counterbalancing?
Attempt to control order effects; group of participants split in two smaller groups, half participants do condition A then condition B and vice versa- this means effects of doing one condition after another in repeated measures design will be counteracted
What is a field experiment?
Takes place in participants’ natural environments- participants randomly allocated to conditions
What is a lab experiment?
Takes place in controlled setting- participants can be randomly allocated to conditions
What is a natural experiment?
Can take place in labs or natural settings- the IV is a variable which is controlled by someone other than the researcher; IV not manipulated
What is a quasi experiment?
The IV is not determined by the researcher, it is naturally occurring
What is informed consent?
Need to give participants info on what they’re doing and they have to agree
What is deception?
Participants should be aware of all elements of investigation before taking part, and should not be lied to during process of research- however, if telling patients everything will affect behaviour, then they can be deceived
What is confidentiality?
If taking part in research you should not have to use I.D., name etc. full privacy
What is protection from harm?
At all times protect participants from physical and psychological harm
Why can a debrief be used a method of dealing with all other issues?
As after the research the participants should be informed about exactly what the information is aiming to do. Debrief also allows participants an opportunity to ask questions or be offered support
What is the role of Peer Review?
It acts as a barrier, stopping flawed, fraudulent and foolish research becoming part of public understanding, however impossible to ensure all reviews are done in a totally unbiased way
What are demand characteristics?
When participants display characteristics that try to help the
researcher or deliberately mess it up
How can demand characteristics be controlled?
The researcher can deceive the participants by not telling them the aim of the research before they take part
What is meant by the term ‘double blind’ and why is it used?
When both participant and researcher are unaware of what condition of an experiment is being tested- so researcher cannot influence results
What is meant by the term ‘single blind and why is it used?
When only participants is unaware of which condition of experiment is being tested- so they do not produce demand characteristics
What is event sampling?
Everytime behaviour/event seen it gets tallied
What is time sampling?
Watch someone’s behaviour in time slots
What is a controlled observation?
Conducted under lab conditions and often involve researcher setting up situation for participants to interact with e.g. Strange Situation
What is a naturalistic observation?
Conducted in real world in location where behaviour being studied takes place
What is a covert observation?
Observation where participants do not know they are being observed
What is an overt observation?
An observation in which participants are aware they are being studied
What is a participant observation?
Involves researchers becoming part of group being observed
What is a non-participant observation?
When researcher is watching from outside group being observed
What is inter-rater reliability?
When two people observe something and get similar/same results
What is qualitative data?
Looking at why people might behave in certain way, interested in subjective experiments- can’t apply statistical analysis
What is quantitative data?
How many times something has been done, deals with numbers etc.
Example of qualitative data?
Self-reports such as interviews and questionairres
Example of quantitative data?
Correlations and numerical data e.g. observations
What is a pilot study and why is it used?
Used for carrying out small scale version for bigger research- used to be able to see problems with behavioural categories, questions etc.
What is a self-report questionairre?
Consist of a series of questions, and require participants to give a written answer
What is an open questionairre?
Allow participant to answer in anyway chosen with no limit to possible responses, qualitative data
What is a closed questionairre?
Limit the possible responses by providing tick boxes or offering a scale to indicate agreement- quantitative data
What are the advantages of a closed questionairre?
Easy to analyse
What are the advantages of an open questionairre?
You get detailed response
What is a correlation?
A way to look for a relationship that may exist between two measured variables- a way of analysing data rather than a research method
What are the variables in correlation referred to as?
Co-variables as they are not casually linked- instead they may or may not be related to one another
What are correlations conducted on?
They can be conducted on secondary data, and provide a useful starting point for psychological research
What is the correlation coefficient?
Strength of a correlation can be measured by calculating the correlation coefficient, number between -1 and +1
What are the strengths of correlation?
Correlations can be conducted quickly using second data as way to investigate whether may be a relationship between two variables
What are the weaknesses of correlation?
-Cannot give you information about cause and effect only that a relationship exists not how or why
What do case studies do?
- Aim to gather detailed information about case, such as an individual, specific group of people or event
- Data can be qualitative or quantitative
Positives of case studies?
- Data gathered is detailed and in-depth so more valid conclusions can be drawn
- Method can be used to investigate events and behaviour that are rare or would be unethical to investigate by other means
What are negatives of case studies?
- These studies can take a lot of time
- Sample is limited and not representative of wider population
What is content analysis?
- An indirect observation using pre-existing communications such as magazine article or TV programme
- Involves systematic examination of material
What are the positives of content analysis?
- Quite ethical as no people being used in order to gather data
- High in ecological validity as analyses real communications
What are the weaknesses of content analysis?
- Data collection may be subjective as relies on researchers interpretation
- Method describes what is seen but not causes of it
What is thematic analysis?
- Technique used to summarise key ideas from qualitative data gathered from all methods
- Process where analysis of the data leads to the development of categories or themes that emerge from it
What are the steps for thematic analysis?
1) -Researcher gets familiar with material, finds categories/themes and creates code for analysis
2) -Then they re examine the data and code it according to the themes
3) -Review the themes by checking against the data
4) -Data is summarised by its themes and supported with data drawn from transcript
5) -Then written up as data analysis
When is a sample used?
It’s impossible to study every individual in target population so sample is drawn to represent them
What is random sampling?
Every member of target population has equal chance of being selected for research e.g. picking names from a hat
What is opportunity sampling?
The sample consists of whoever happens to be available at the time study is happening
What is stratified sampling?
Target population broken down into key demographic components e.g. male and female and then selected randomly from there
What is systematic sampling?
Researcher picks people according to a system e.g. every fourth person is chosen
What is volunteer sampling?
Sample consists of people who choose to respond to requests for participants
Positives of sampling?
Do not take too much time or effort
What are the negatives of event sampling and time sampling?
Event sampling: Can be difficult to do accurately when there is a lot of action to record reducing reliability of data
Time sampling: Possible to miss important events as they happen outside time frame
What should researchers do to keep reliability of data collection?
Conduct a pilot observation to make sure categories are easy to identify and nothing is missing and inter-rater reliability
What are the four types of validity?
1) -Face validity: Seeing if the test is what it claims to be
2) -Concurrent Validity: Uses already validated measures for variable being tested and correlates measures from test with measures using another
3) -Ecological Validity: If results can be generalised and applied to real-life settings
4) -Temporal Validity: Compares results of time by retesting and if findings are still valid
What is another way to improve reliability?
The test re-test method; Give test to same participants on two (or more) occasions and correlate results, reliable if they are the same
What are operationalised variables and what do they do?
It helps increase objectivity e.g. defining aggression to pushing/kicking
What are the seven features of science?
Empirical methods, Objectivity, Theory Construction, Hypothesis Testing, Replicability, Falsifiability, Paradigms and Paradigm Shifts
What are empirical methods?
Data-collecting techniques based on actual evidence rather than thoughts
What is objectivity?
Achieved when data and interpretation are free from bias
What is replicability?
Researchers must be able to replicate procedure and get same results
What is theory construction?
A theory seeks to explain observed phenomena which enable predictions that are then tested and the results are used to refine the theory
What is falsifiablity?
Theories should generate testable predictions which can be proven wrong so data should be objective e.g. Freud cannot be falsified as not objectively tested
What is hypothesis testing?
A testable prediction based on a theory
What is a paradigm?
A paradigm is a shared set of assumptions about the content and methods of a particular discipline e.g. An early behaviourist paradigm was that behaviour can be explained in terms of learning from environment and this can be tested scientifically
What is a paradigm shift?
Occurs when dominant paradigm is replaced with a new one e.g. simple stimulus-response learning challenged by Social Learning Theory
What are the sections of a scientific report?
Abstract, Introduction, Method, Results, Discussion, References
What is the abstract?
Summarises research so other researchers can decide if it is relevant without wasting time- briefly outlines entire investigation
What is the introduction?
Outlines why the study was done- beginning is general, summary of research on topic next, outlines aims of study with hypothesis at end
What is the method of report?
Details what was done- identification of variables, includes sample size, sampling method, apparatus used etc.
What are the results of report?
Summarised data in tables and charts supported by conclusions drawn from data
What is the discussion?
Links findings and conclusions of study to background theory and research, also explores limitations of researches and outlines implications for future research
What are the references?
Comes at the end, references cited in writing of report so all sources of info here
What is a meta-analyses?
Secondary Data Method that combines data from several studies that allows conclusion to be drawn
What is an example of qualitative data?
Interviews and Questionairres
What is an example of quantitative data?
Inferential statistics
Strengths and Weaknesses of mean?
Strength- Likely to be most representative as all scores used
Weakness- Affected by extremes
Strengths and weaknesses of median?
Strength- Unaffected by extremes
Weakness- Does not use all scores so less representative
Strengths and weaknesses of mode?
Strength- Unaffected by extremes
Weakness- Does not use all scores
How can you see the normal distribution of a graph?
The shape of the line on the graph is bell shaped
What is a positive skew of distribution?
Results from scores that are mainly below the mean- more scores concentrated to left of graph
What is a negative skew of distribution?
When most scores fall above the mean and peak of chart is to the right
What is nominal data?
Frequency data e.g. number of people who finish half a marathon
What is ordinal data?
Continuous data that represents scores along a scale e.g. position people came in marathon
What is interval data?
Scale of measurements exact and equal intervals e.g. time taken by competitors in marathon
What is a type 1` error?
A false positive leading to the rejection of the null hypothesis- occurs when significance level too high e.g. p<0.10
What is a type 2 error?
A false negative leading to the rejection of the null hypothesis again- occurs when significance level too low e.g. p<0.01
What is a significance level?
Standard significance level accepted in psychology is 0.05
What does below 0.05 significance level show and above 0.05?
- Below 0.05 shows that you should accept there is a genuine effect
- Whereas above 0.05 (5%) you should reject that there was an effect as it is too risky to tell and reject the null hypothesis
What are confounding variables?
Variables that are found to have influenced the results of the research
