Research Methods Flashcards
what is an aim?
a brief statement of what the researcher intends to find out
what is a hypothesis?
a precise and testable statement about the assumed relationship between variables
extraneous variables
any variable other than the iv which could affect the dv
examples of extraneous variables
noise, time of day, tone of voice, individual differences between participants
confounding variable
type of extraneous variable which varies systematically with the iv - because it’s also changing we don’t know if the effect on the dv is due to the iv or the confounding variable
examples of confounding variables
carrying out one condition in the morning and the other in the afternoon, harlow monkey experiment
situational variables
time of day, same instructions, weather
standardisation
keeping all situational variables the same, improving replicability
participant variables
age, iq, specific skills
how are participant variables controlled?
through random allocation of participants to each condition
what are the two types of order effects?
practice effects and boredom effects
what are practice effects?
participants do better in the second condition as they have practiced or worked out the aim
what are boredom effects?
participants do worse in the second condition as they are not focussing as hard or are bored/tired
counterbalancing
abba - half do condition a then b, other half do condition b then a
advantage of counterbalancing
order effects should be balanced out
ecological validity
how far can you generalise findings to the real world
lab experiment strengths
high control over extraneous variables so high internal validity, more replicable
lab experiment weaknesses
can lack external validity, participants may have demand characteristics
field experiment strengths
high ecological validity, less chance of demand characteristics
field experiment weaknesses
ethical issues, less control over extraneous variables
natural experiment strengths
high external validity, unique insights gained into real-life situations
natural experiment weaknesses
no control over extraneous variables, may only occur rarely so limits generalisation
quasi experiment strengths
can compare different types of people easily, high ecological validity
quasi experiment weaknesses
cannot be randomly allocated so less certain that iv alone causes the dv, under natural conditions there is no control over extraneous variables and in lab conditions it lacks ecological validity
what are independent measures?
randomly allocated participants only do 1 condition each
strength of independent measures
no order effects
weaknesses of independent measures
more participants required than repeated measures, participant variables may change results
what are repeated measures?
each participant does both conditions
strength of repeated measures
fewer participants needed
weakness of repeated measures
order effects
what are matched pairs?
pairs matched based on a key feature like age or iq, one member of pair is placed in each group
strengths of matched pairs
no order effects, reduces participant variables
weaknesses of matched pairs
time consuming, impossible to match people exactly unless they’re identical twins
what is a target population?
the group of people the researcher is interested in studying
