Research methods Flashcards
(128 cards)
what is ordinal data?
made up scale. objective scale based on judgement, e.g ratings of attractiveness (as opposed to size of eyes) or ratings of agression (as opposed to number of punches)
what is interval data?
precise scale. someone took 10 secs to complete a task took twice the time someone who took 5 secs, but someone who scores 10 on an attractiveness scale is not twice as attractive as someone who scored 5.
what is ratio data?
same as interval data but there is an absolute zero. there can be no negative scores e.g number of words recalled or height.
what is a significant difference
a difference that is unlikely to be due to chance
can reject the null hypothesis
what does just by chance mean?
the null hypothesis is true
what percentage does a difference have to be to be deemed significant is psychology
5% p<0.05
what level significance is used in medial trials
1% p<0.01
p means
probabilty the result is due to chance
content analysis (2marks)
a technique for analysing qualitative data of various kinds. Data can be places in categories and counted (quantitative) or anlaysed by themes (qualitative)
application of content analysis to a Q
psychologists observe/watch/read whatever it is
enable them to identify potential categories which emerge of different types of x
give examples of what the categories could be
then watch/read/observe again and count the number of examples which fell into each category to provide quantitative data.
how to assess the reliability of a content anlysis
inter rater reliability
the two psychologists could carry out the content analysis of the films separately and compare their answers to see if they got the same/similar tallies for each category- if they did then the inter-rater reliability is high
justify the use of repeated measures design
to remove the effects of individual differences in the DV if an independent groups design was used.
to avoid potential difficulties in matching participants
to reduce the number of participants needed for the experiment
experimental extraneous variables
- situational variable: environmental that affect ppt behaviour such as noise, temeperature, lighting etc (should be controlled by standardised procedures so the conditions are the same for every ppt (including standardised instructions)
2.partipnt varibales e.g mood intelligence anxiety nerves concentration
these could affect performance and therefore the results of the experiment
- investigator effects: because they know the aim of the experiment they interpret behaviour is a way that is bias and fits with what they were expecting
- demand characteristics: clues in the experiment that suggest to the ppt the purpose of the research
to minimise the effects of this the envinroment should be as natural as possible
how to control order effects
counterbalancing: give half the ppts condition A first while the other ppts get condition B first
this prevents improvement due to practice or poorer performance due to boredom
how can participant variable be controlled
random allocation to conditions
external validity
how fair findings from an experiment can be generalised to real life situations
e.g a hazard perception test on a computer doesn’t resemble a real life driving situation (no noise, stress etC) ecologically invalid
example of extraneous variable and how affects experiment
the conversation with the psychologist was not controlled so the difficulty or the number of questions could have aired this would influence the DV as more or less attention would be required
possible ethical issues:
- protection from harm
- informed consent: participants should be given full info about the nature of the task before deciding whether or not to participate
- debriefing: at end of experiment, feedback on performace and ppt can ask questions
- freedom to withdraw: ppt should be made aware of their right to withdraw before and during the ex
- confidentiality:ppl should not be identified and retain anonymity (use of initial or numbers instead of names)
writing a set of standardised instructions
- you will take part in blah test and how long
- what you have to do is
- do you have any questions
have to be written to be read out
and formal
variables in treatment studies
use of different therapists on conditions
length of time before assessment
the interaction between sex of therapist and patient
individual differences such as age and gender
whether patients were receiving other form of therapy or medication.
validity
how well a test measures what it says it measures- so is it true and accurate
and can it be generalised beyond the research setting within which it was found
assessing validity e.g a questionnaire used to measure the severity of symptoms
CONCURRENT
take another measure of symptoms from the same ppts e.g doctor or family member and compare the two sets of scores. if they agree then the measure has high validity
CONTENT
ask a expert to assess the questions to see if they are an accurate measure of panic attacks
CONSTRUCT
assess how closely the questions relate to underlying theoretical constructs i.e. how well they relate to panic symptoms
giving fully informed consent- what should participants be told first
ppts should be informed about the trial (use the stem to give details on what they’ll be required to do)
AND
data will be anonymised so that they are not identifiable in the results
make them aware they are free to withdraw themselves or their data from the clinical trial if they want
purpose of the abstract in a psychological report
to provide a short summary of the study, that is sufficient to establish whether it is worth reading the full report.