Research Methods

Question 1

what are the four areas of responsibility (ethics)?

Answer 1

respect, competence, responsibility, integrity

Question 2

what guidelines are in respect

Answer 2

informed consent
right to withdraw
confidentiality

Question 3

what does competence mean

Answer 3

the need for psychologists to work within their own capabilities, not giving advice if not qualified to do so, check research with peers

Question 4

what guidelines are in responsibility

Answer 4

protection of participants

debrief

Question 5

what guidlines are in integrity

Answer 5

deception

Question 6

what is the order of report writing

Answer 6

AIMRDA

abstract
introduction
method
results
discussion
appendices

Question 7

what is included in the abstract

Answer 7

its a summary of the research, outling the aim, method, participants, results and conlusions

Question 8

what is included in the introduction

Answer 8

it considers the area of psychology the study is located and then focuses on previous research which has been carried out in the same area.
It’ll justify current research and identify the aim of the research.
Probably end with the alternative and null hypothesis.

Question 9

what is included in the method

Answer 9

includes details necessary for someone to be able to carry out exactly the same research in the same conditions. It will include the method (design, sample, materials/apparatus, procedure)
idea is to provide a replicable study

Question 10

what is included in the results

Answer 10

refers to the raw data and provide verbal summaries and descriptive statistics

Question 11

what is included in the discussion

Answer 11

focuses on what the study has discovered, relating it to the research in the introduction
evaluation and alternative explanations, suggestions for new ideas or improvements for study

all works citied in the article should be clearly referenced

Question 12

what is included in the appendices

Answer 12

they are labelled and referred to in the body of the article, these contain materials, maybe calculations, raw data and anything else the reader needs to fully understand and repeat the research

Question 13

what is induction

Answer 13

the concept that we observe something and provide a theory for this

Question 14

what is deduction

Answer 14

the logical conclusion based on irrefutable proof.
so if we observe something in psychological research that is absolutely true and there is no other possible explanation, then we would deduce that the conclusion is correct
(testing an existing theory)

Question 15

strengths and weaknesses of mean

Answer 15

s - takes account of all the data

w - not a suitable measure when there are extreme values/outliners

Question 16

strengths and weaknesses of median

Answer 16

s - less affected by extreme scores

w - is only concerned with the ‘middle’ number so does not take account of all the scores

Question 17

strengths and weaknesses of mode

Answer 17

s - easy to calculate and can be used for non-numerical data

w - not so useful if there are multiple modes. Cannot use in stats tests

Question 18

strengths and weaknesses of range

Answer 18

s - quick and easy to calculate

w - only takes account of highest and lowest scores so data could be skewed

Question 19

strengths and weaknesses of variance

Answer 19

s - takes account of all of the values

w - is expressed as a squared value rather than the original units

Question 20

strengths and weaknesses of standard deviation

Answer 20

s - considers all available scores (unlike range)

w - cannot be used with the nominal data can be quite time consuming to calculate

Question 21

strengths of independent measures design

Answer 21

controls for order effects

less likely to be affected by demand characteristics - only tested once - less time to work out aim of study

Question 22

weaknesses of independent measures design

Answer 22

requires more participants - more time consuming

risk of participant variables

Question 23

strengths of repeated measures design

Answer 23

controls for participant variables

less time consuming - requires less participants

Question 24

weaknesses of repeated measures design

Answer 24

could be affected by order effects - practice, fatigue and boredom (requires counterbalancing)

demand characteristics - more likely to work out the aim of the study if they do it more than once (may then behave accordingly)

Question 25

strengths of matched participants design

Answer 25

less likely affected by demand characteristics - only tested once

controls for participant variables better than independent measures because they are matched for the important variables to the sudy

Question 26

weaknesses of matched participants design

Answer 26

would take longer than both independent or repeated

impossible to match ppts on enough variables to ensure there are no paarticipant variables

Question 27

Nick is cool

Answer 27

nominal - independent - chi square

Question 28

nick reads books

Answer 28

nominal - repeated - binomial sign test

Question 29

olly is mad

Answer 29

ordinal - independent - mann-whitney-u test

Question 30

olly runs wild

Answer 30

ordinal - repeated - wilcoxon

Question 31

olly can swim

Answer 31

ordinal - correlation - spearmans rho