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a level psychology > research methods > Flashcards

research methods Flashcards

1
Q

describe what a lab experiment is

A
  • controlled setting, artificial env.
  • manipulates the IV
  • participants randomly allocated
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2
Q

describe the strengths and limitations of a lab experiment

A

strengths:
- highly controlled (standardised procedures makes replication easier)
- high internal validity
- good causation
- able to give some consent as know they’re being studied

limitations:
- low ecological val
- not reflective of real like behaviour
- know being studied so demand characteristics are more likely to influence their behaviour.

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3
Q

describe what a field experiment is

A

in a natural environment, but still manipulating IV
ppts unaware they’re being studied

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4
Q

what are the strengths of a field experiment?

A
  • less demand characteristics as not aware they’re being studied
  • behaviour more likely to reflect real life
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5
Q

what are the limitations of a field study?

A
  • less controlled, so more chance of extraneous variables effecting the results.
  • lack of consent if don’t know being studied.
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6
Q

what’s a natural study?

A

natural environment, doesn’t manipulate IV.

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7
Q

what are the strengths of a natural study?

A
  • less demand characteristics
  • high ecological validity (real like behaviour)
  • less experimenter bias as the IV isn’t being controlled by the experimenter, so less likely to influence the data. this increases the validity
  • as the IV is occurring naturally, the changing in DV are more likely to be realistic.
  • very low control of extraneous variables as cannot be standardised
  • can be used in situations which would be ethically unacceptable to manipulate the independent variable.
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8
Q

what’s a Quasi experiment?

A

IV is naturally occurring

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9
Q

what are the strengths of a Quasi experiment?

A
  • the IV is a naturally occurring difference between people, meaning changes in the DV may have more realism than if the IV was artificially created.
  • participants are likely to know they are being studied, making consent easier to get - fewer ethical issues.
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10
Q

what are the limitations of a Quasi experiment?

A
  • can only be used where a naturally occurring difference between people can easily be identified, so they are difficult to set up.
  • the task used to gather the data for the DV may still be unrealistic, meaning that the data has little mundane realism.
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11
Q

what’s a confounding variable?

A

any variable, other than the IV, that may have affected the DV

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12
Q

what’s an extraneous variable?

A

variable other than the IV that may affect the DV if not controlled before the experiment.

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13
Q

what are the 2 self-report techniques

A

interview, questionaire

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14
Q

what’s an interview?

A

verbally asking questions face to face, and the ppt gives info to the reader and provides details of their own feelings.

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15
Q

what are the 3 types of interviews?

A

structured, unstructured, semi-structured

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16
Q

what’s a structured interview?

A

like a questionnaire being read out - closed questions

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17
Q

what are the strengths and limitations of a structured interview?

A

strengths:
- easy to record data
- easy to train others as interviewers
- suitable for people who cannot complete questionnaires.

limitations
- doesn’t give in depth information and interviewees are restricted with their answers
- not as easy as postal questions

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18
Q

what’s an unstructured interview?

A
  • conversational, free talking
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19
Q

what are the strengths and limitations of an unstructured interview?

A

strengths:
- suitable for sensitive topics (lots of rapport)
- in-depth information, high validity
- suitable for the elderly and non educated

limitations:
- harder to record data
- cannot repeat as each interview is different - cannot generalise
- harder to train interviewers.
- time consuming
- less reliable

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20
Q

what are the overall strengths and limitations of interviews?

A

Strengths
- can see the persons behaviour which can give extra information. (e.g. emotions)
- can build rapport, meaning you can get more info than a questionnaire, and more in-depth.

limitations
- investigator effect - e.g. gender, age, ethnicity could effect response
- can be very time-consuming to gather data as each ppt will be interviewed on their own, this means that the sample size is likely to be smaller, making it less generalisable.
- analysis of the data is subjective and open to a wide variety of interpretations, so less reliable.
- social desirability - changing answers to look god to the investigator also might not feel comfortable enough to say real opinions to a real life person)

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21
Q

what is a questionnaire?

A

a set of questions to complete written down and can be given by post or hand.

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22
Q

what are the strengths and limitations of questionnaires?

A

strengths
- large sample as you can get multiple ppts to complete it at the same time.
- less time consuming that interview.
- no investigator effects
- honest response as it’s anonymous, making results more valid (not trying to be socially desirable)
- data from closed questions can be analysed quickly and comparisons made between variables.

limitations:
- miss out on behavioural info from ppts
- cannot build rapport, so no trust and less likely to give more information
- cannot deviate or explain questions, so ppts are restricted to the answers they give.

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23
Q

what’s an open questions?

A

questions that allow the participant to answer in any way they choose, data will be qualitative

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24
Q

what’s a closed question?

A

limit responses by providing tick boxes, or offering a scale for agreement (e.g. likert scale), quantitive data

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25
Q

what are the strengths and limitations of closed questions?

A

strength - more information and in more detail

limitation - hard to compare

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26
Q

what are the strengths and limitations of closed questions?

A

strength
- easier to compare (quantitive)
- help to check facts or get participants to speak before open Q’s

limitations
- less detailed information as to why.
- subjective

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27
Q

what’s a naturalistic observation, and name the strengths and limitations.

A

observation in the real world in the location where the behaviour being studied takes place.

strengths
- can be generalised

**limitations **
- less control of variables
- lack of causation.

28
Q

what’s a controlled observation, and what are the strengths and limitations?

A

artificial setting

strengths
- very controlled, so nether causation

limitations
- can’t generalise behaviour to real life

29
Q

what’s a covert observation? and what are the strengths and limitations?

A

observer is undercover and hidden, the ppts don’t know they’re being observed

strengths
- less chance of observer effects, or social desirability

limitations
- lack of consent
- no right to withdraw
- deception
- could be dangerous for the observer

30
Q

what’s an overt observation? and what are the strengths and limitations?

A

ppts know they’re being observed

strengths
- ethical
- RTW
- no deception
- consent

limitations
- observer effect (behaviour changes due to being watched)

31
Q

what is a participant observation? and what are the strengths and limitations?

A

when the observer pretends to be a ppt

strengths
- no observer effects - real behaviour

limitations
- can be impractical- long observation, pretending to be a diff age.
- can be dangerous - could have to commit a crime to be ppt (unethical)

32
Q

what’s a non-participant observation? and what are the strengths and limitations?

A

when the observer isn’t pretending to be a ppt

strengths
- practically easier
- less dangerous

limitations
- observer effects

33
Q

what’s event sampling in observations?

A

the observer watches for the target behaviours in the sample and simply records all instances of the behaviours when they happen.
watching for entire observation

👍- catch all behaviour

👎- long, impractical and difficult to do accurately when there is a lot of action to record, reducing reliability of the data.

34
Q

what’s time sampling in observations?

A

observer watches and records the behaviour at set or randomly set time intervals.

👍- better sue to rest breaks and you need time to record what you’ve seen

👎- miss behaviour when not observing.

35
Q

how to establish reliability of data collection in observations?

A
  • make sure the tally chart works by conducting a pilot observation.
  • trained observers
  • multiple observers should be used to watch the same behaviour. compare tallies at the end and if there’s an agreement, the inter-observer reliability is high.
36
Q

what’s a correlation and what are the variables in a correlation referred to as?

A

a way to look for a relationship that may exist between 2 measured variables

co-variables

37
Q

what would a correlation coefficient score of 0 indicate? and what’s the perfect positive and negative correlations?

A

no correlation

-1, +1

38
Q

evaluate the use of correlational research

A

strengths
- shows clear trends in data
- ethical - better if cannot do an experiment
- correlations can be conducted quickly using secondary data as a way to investigate whether there may be a relationship between two variables worthy of further study using another research method.

limitations
- can’t give you information about cause and effect .a they can only tell you a relationship exists but now how or why.
- only measure relationships between 2 variables, but there may be unmeasured variables influencing the data that aren’t taken into account

39
Q

what is the aim of a case study?

A

to gather detailed information about a case, such as an individual, group of people or an event.

40
Q

evaluate case studies

A

strengths
- the data gathered is detailed and in depth max so more valid conclusions can be drawn.
- can be used to investigate events and behaviour that are reset or would be unethical to investigate by other means.
- can create and inspire other research studies that find out even more
- provide evidence to support theories

limitations
- time consuming
- sample is limited and not representative of the wider population
- investigator could have bias on the direction of the end result so it make it difficult to know what’s factual.

41
Q

what’s a null hypothesis?

A

states that there will be no effect of an independent variable on the dependent variable or there will be no relationship between the two co-variables being tested.

42
Q

what’s an alternative hypothesis?

A

predicts there will be a significant outcome.

43
Q

what’s a directional hypothesis?

A

states exactly what outcome is expected - used when there’s previous research

e.g. in loftus and palmers study they could state:

ppts given the verb ‘smashed’ in the question will give significantly higher estimates of speed than ppts given the verb contacted.

44
Q

what’s a non directional hypothesis?

A

states that there will be a different between the 2 IV’s, but not what the difference will be

loftus and palmer:
there will be a difference in the estimates of speed given by ppts guven different verbs in the questions

45
Q

what are demand characteristics?

A

when ppts are aware of what the researchers are looking for - ppts may confound the results by trying to either help the researcher support their hypothesis or deliberately mess up the data

46
Q

what are the 3 ways that investigator effects could occur?

A

non verbal communication

physical characteristics - gender, age, ethnicity

bias in interpretation of data

47
Q

name a way that you can reduce investigator effects

A

double-blind trial

48
Q

what are order effects?

A

practice effects, boredom/fatigue effects.

49
Q

describe/evaluate the independent groups design

A

different groups doing each condition.

👍- ppts less likely to guess the aim and change their behaviour accordingly

👍- no order effects (e.g.

👎- as the groups contain different people, their individual differences might influence the results.

50
Q

describe/evaluate the repeated measures design

A

one group doing all conditions.

👍- no individual differences between ppts to act as a confounding variable.

👎- order effects (e.g. boredom/ practice effects)
^to overcome, do counterbalancing

51
Q

describe/evaluate the matched pairs design.

A

different groups in each condition h the groups are matched on key factors

👍- by matching the groups in each condition on key ppt variables, the influence of individual differences = reduced.

👍- no order effects

👎- despite some control, it is impossible to remove all individual differences

52
Q

what is standardisation?

A

try and ensure all your ppts experience the research in the same way. - keeping the variables the same (e.g. having a list of infractions to follow which stays the same for all ppts)

53
Q

what’s counterbalancing?

A

the group of ppts are split into two smaller groups

half the ppts do condition A then condition B while the other half do condition B then condition A

this means the potential effects (e.g. order effects) of doing one condition after another in repressed measures design will be counteracted.

54
Q

what’s random allocation?

A

reduces the potential of bias as ppts are randomly allocation to one of the conditions.

55
Q

what is randomisation?

A

researchers may choose to randomise parts of the procedure to remove any bias by making it all ‘due to chance’

e.g. ppts may do the conditions in a random order but having a computer decide what order.

56
Q

what is a pilot study?

A

a small-scale trial run of the experiment. this allows you to identify any potential issues and to modify the design or procedure - saves time and money in long run. can also check the ethics of the study.

can identify extraneous variables and try to control them

can ask ppts after to see if they have any improvements.

57
Q

what’s a single blind trial?

A

the process of ensuring ppts do not know the aim of the experiment

reduces demand characteristics

58
Q

what’s a double blind trial?

A

ensuring ppts and experimenters don’t knoe the details of the experiment.

prevents demand characteristics and investigator bias.

59
Q

what is the target population?

A

the group of people that you are studying.

60
Q

what is sample bias?

A

when the sample is not representative of the target population.

61
Q

what is random sampling?

A

when every member of the target population has an equal chance of being selected for the researches this can be done by picking names out of a hat, or putting names on a database and using a computer to randomly select.

👍- least bias as it removes human choice. more chance of a representative sample.

👎- can still have a sample bias and not guaranteed to be representative. also needs a list.

62
Q

what is opportunity sampling?

A

the sample consists of whoever happens to be available at the time where the study is happening.

👍- practically easy and can get a large sample size quickly

👎- sample bias, not representative of target population, similar people obtained.

63
Q

what’s systematic sampling?

A

the researcher picks people according to a system, for example every fourth person is chosen.

names in a list, go down list and pick every nth name.

👍- removes human choice so reduces sample bias

👎- not guaranteed to get a representative sample and needs a list

64
Q

what’s stratified sampling?

A

target population is broken down into sections, each representing a key group or characteristic that should be present in the final sample, and ppts are selected from these sections according to its relative size in the population.

👍- removes human choice and sample bias and perfectly representative as matched proportion.

👎- practically difficult to calculate and needs knowledge of target population characteristics.

65
Q

what’s volunteer sampling?

A

the sample consists of people who choose to respond to a request for ppts after advertisement.

👍- easy to get a large sample size as already consented (no drop-out)

👎- very unrepresentative. volunteer personality - extraverted, people who have time on their hands - e.g. elderly. (all similar people)

a level psychology (7 decks)

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