Research Methods Flashcards
What is an aim
A statement of what you are investigating gives study a clear focus
What is a hypothesis?
Precise statement which makes a prediction on what you’re going to find
Directional / one tailed hypothesis
Predict direction of the results tells you what the difference is going to be
Non-directional towtailed hypothesis
Tells you there’s a difference but no direction of what the results going to be
What is an independent variable
It’s changed or manipulated by the experimenter
What is a control condition
Condition that is not controlled or changed by the experimenter
What is a dependent variable
The one you measure what the IV has changed
Operationalised variables
Clearly defining variables and items of how they can be measured
Extrenuous variables
Additional or unwanted variables which are identified before the study they are controlled or removed not the independent variable or dependent variable but could affect the validity or of the study
What are demand characteristics
When participants figure out the aim of the research and change their behavior as a result may behave in a way to purposefully support the hypothesis or may deliberately try to disrupt the results the validity of this research is reduced as neither are the reflection of a participants true behavior in that piece of research
What are order effects
Occur in repeated measure design this refers to how the positioning of tasks might influence the outcome for example boredom or tired my get the better at the task do to practice
Investigator effects
Researcher unintentionally or unconsciously influences the outcome of any research they are concluding due to non-verbal communication like body language so that’s what they’re feeling physical characteristics or bias in interpretation of data
What is standardization
Everything is the same same variables same timing same instructions same resources it controls extranuous variables
What is counter balancing
Ensuring all variables occur in all possible conditions can help to manage order effect
Randomisation
All decisions should be via chance using chance to allocate participants to different conditions prevents investigator bias
What is single blind
The process of ensuring participants don’t know the details of the experiments helps to prevent demand characteristics
What is double blind
The process of ensuring participants aren’t experimenters don’t know the details of the experiment helps to prevent demand characteristics and investigative bias
Independent groups
Random allocation anyone and any group quicker and easier no order effects needs lots of water splints lots of individual differences
Repeated methods designs
St participants do both experiments no individual difference fewer participants needed practice order effects impractical for some research board and practice may affect the experiment
Marched pairs
Both groups have similar participants / characteristics fewer individual differences no order effects difficult to do takes time cannot match everyone higher dropout rate
