research methods

Question 1

what is a single blind study?

Answer 1

• participants may not be told details about the research (ie the aim, which condition they are in, if there is another condition)
• done in an attempt to control demand characteristics

Question 2

what is a double blind study?

Answer 2

• both participants & researchers are unaware of the aims
• often conducted by third party
• done to avoid investigator effects

Question 3

what is a case study?

Answer 3

an in-depth investigation, description and analysis of a single individual/group/institution

Question 4

what is content analysis?

Answer 4

research:
- systematic investigation of materials and sources
- done to establish facts and reach new conclusions

method:
- particular procedure for accomplishing or approaching something

Question 5

what is coding?

Answer 5

• stage of content analysis
• communication is analysed by identifying each instance of the chosen categories

Question 6

what is thematic analysis?

Answer 6

• inductive and qualitative approach to analysis
• involves identifying implicit or explicit ideas within data
• themes will often emerge after coding

Question 7

what does studying a ‘case’ involve?

Answer 7

• may involve the production of qualitative data
• may construct a case history of the individual
• may be subjected to experimental or psychological testing (may produce quantitative data)
• tend to take place over a long period of time (longitudinal)

Question 8

evaluation of using case studies

Answer 8

+ offers rich detailed insights
+ contributes to understanding of ‘normal behaviour’
+ may generate hypotheses for future studies
- no generalisability
- may be based on researcher’s interpretation
- retroactive accounts

Question 9

evaluation of content analysis

Answer 9

+ circumnavigates many ethical issues
+ high external validity
- studied indirectly
- analysed outside of context within it occurred
- lack of objectivity

Question 10

what is a questionnaire?

Answer 10

• most common form of self report technique
• involves a pre-set list of written questions
• used to assess thoughts and/or feelings
• may be used as part of an experiment
• may be used to assess the DV

Question 11

what is an open question?

Answer 11

• does not have a fixed range of answers
• respondents are free to answer in any way they wish
• contains a wide range of different responses
• tends to produce qualitative data
• may be difficult to analyse

Question 12

what is a closed question?

Answer 12

• offers a fixed number of responses
• gathers qualitative data (counts number of qualitative responses)
• easy to analyse
• may lack depth and detail

Question 13

what is an interview?

Answer 13

• may be conducted over the phone/on the internet
• may involve face to face interaction

Question 14

what is a structured interview?

Answer 14

• made up of a pre-determined set of questions that are in a fixed order

Question 15

what is an unstructured interview?

Answer 15

• works like a conversation
• no set questions
• general aim that a certain topic will be discussed
• interaction tends to be free- flowing

Question 16

what is a semi-structured interview?

Answer 16

• most likely to encounter in every day life
• list of questions worked out in advance
• interviewers are also free to ask follow up questions

Question 17

how do you design an interview?

Answer 17

• involve an interview schedule
• should be standardised to reduce the contaminating effect
• usually involve an interview and a single participant
• one-to-one in a quiet room, starting with neutral questions

Question 18

what is acquiescent bias?

Answer 18

phenomenon where individuals are likely to agree with with something regardless of how they actually feel

Question 19

what is social desirability bias?

Answer 19

portraying yourself in a specific way to appeal to society/the researcher

Question 20

what is response bias?

Answer 20

participants reply in a similar way every time (ie always ticking yes)

Question 21

questionnaires evaluation

Answer 21

+ cost-effective
+ gather large amounts of data quickly
+ can be distributed to large amounts of people
+ can be completed without researcher’s presence
+ can be easily analysed
- responses may not be truthful
- often produces: social desirability, acquiescent and response biases

Question 22

unstructured interview evaluation

Answer 22

+ flexible
+ more likely to gain insight
- risk of observer bias
- difficult to analyse

Question 23

structured interview evaluation

Answer 23

+ replicable
- unable to deviate from topic
- social desirability bias
- limited amount of rich data

Question 24

what is a pilot study?

Answer 24

• a small scale trial run of a study that is done before the real study
• identifies any potential issues
• improvements can be done

Question 25

random sample evaluation

Answer 25

+ potentially unbiased - may be confounding variables - time consuming

Question 26

systematic sample evaluation

Answer 26

+ objective method - time-consuming - selected participants may refuse

Question 27

stratified sample evaluation

Answer 27

+ representative - cannot account for subgroups

Question 28

opportunity sample evaluation

Answer 28

+ convenient - unrepresentative

Question 29

volunteer sample evaluation

Answer 29

+ easy + participants engage and want to do the study - volunteer bias

Question 30

what is a correlation?

Answer 30

- mathematical technique - investigates an association between two variables (called co-variables)

Question 31

what is a positive correlation?

Answer 31

as one co-variable increases/decreases, the other co-variable increases/decreases. (ie the number of people in a room and the noise level)

Question 32

what is a negative correlation?

Answer 32

as one co-variable increases the other decreases (ie the number of people in a room and the amount of space)

Question 33

what is a zero correlation?

Answer 33

when the co-variables have no relationship (ie the amount of people in Newcastle and the amount of daily rainfall in Peru are likely to have no relationship)

Question 34

what are measures of central tendency?

Answer 34

the general term for any measure of the average value in a set of data (ie mean, median and mode)

Question 35

what is a measure of dispersion?

Answer 35

indicates the scattering of data and explains the disparity of data from to another (ie range and standard deviation)

Question 36

what is standard deviation?

Answer 36

- single value that tells us how far scores deviate from the mean - the larger the standard deviation, the larger the spread within a set of data - if there is a large SD within a particular condition it suggests that not all participants were impacted by the IV in the same way - low standard deviation reflects the fact that the data is tightly clustered around the mean, which may imply all participants responded in the same way

Question 37

mean evaluation

Answer 37

+ representative - distorted by extreme values (ie average class age including teacher)

Question 38

median evaluation

Answer 38

+ extreme scores do not effect the median - less sensitive so less representative

Question 39

mode evaluation

Answer 39

+ easy to calculate + sometimes only usable average (when not dealing with numerical data) - not very representative

Question 40

range evaluation

Answer 40

+ easy to calculate - unrepresentative - distorted by extreme values

Question 41

standard deviation evaluation

Answer 41

+ more precise - distorted by extreme values

Question 42

what is qualitative data?

Answer 42

- expressed in words and non-numerical values - may be converted to numbers for the purposes of analysis

Question 43

what is quantitative data?

Answer 43

data that can be counted - usually given as a number

Question 44

what is primary data?

Answer 44

- has been obtained first-hand by a researcher for the purposes of a research project - often collected directly from participants as part of an experiment, self-report or observation

Question 45

what is secondary data?

Answer 45

- already been collected by someone - pre-dates the current research project - might include the work of other psychologists or government statistics

Question 46

what is meta-analysis?

Answer 46

- combining the findings from a number of studies on a particular topic - aim is to produce an overall statistical conclusion (the effect size) based on a range of studies - should not be confused with a review where a number of studies are compared and discussed

Question 47

a **general statement** about what the researcher intends to do

Answer 47

what is an aim?

Question 48

a **testable statement** that is made before the study takes place which states the relationship between **variables**

Answer 48

what is a hypothesis?

Question 49

predicts that there will be a **difference** and states in what **direction** (ie higher, lower)

Answer 49

what is a directional hypothesis?

Question 50

predicts that there will be a **difference** but does not specify in which direction

Answer 50

what is a non-directional hypothesis?

Question 51

the variable the researcher **controls, changes, or manipulates**

Answer 51

what is the independent variable (IV)?

Question 52

the outcome, which is **measured** by the researcher and is **caused** by the change in the **IV**

Answer 52

what is the dependent variable (DV)?

Question 53

if **previous research** suggests the direction of findings

Answer 53

when should you use a directional hypothesis?

Question 54

if **previous research** suggests the findings are **ambiguous** or there are **little to no findings**

Answer 54

when should you use a non-directional hypothesis?