Research Methods

Question 1

What’s a Null hypothesis

Answer 1

One that is based on the assumption that there is no difference between two conditions or no relationship between two variables

Question 2

What’s a directional hypothesis (one tailed)

Answer 2

A prediction that states the direction of the difference between two conditions or which states the direction of any correlation between two variables

Question 3

What’s a non-directional hypothesis (two tailed)

Answer 3

A prediction which states that there will be no difference between conditions or that there will be a correlation but which does not state a direction the difference will go in

Question 4

What is the independent variable?

Answer 4

The variable that you change, which CAUSES the effect or outcome

Question 5

What’s the dependant variable?

Answer 5

The variable that we measure which is the outcome of effect of the study.

Question 6

What’s an alternative hypothesis?

Answer 6

One that States that there is a significant difference between two conditions of a significant relationship between two variables

Question 7

Extraneous variable?

Answer 7

Any variable that may affect the dependant variable apart from the IV

Question 8

What is operationalising a variable?

Answer 8

Means to make something clear so that it’s easier and more accurate to measure and makes reproducibility better

Question 9

What are the experimental designs?

Answer 9

• Independent groups
• repeated measures
• matched pairs

Question 10

Explain independent groups and it’s benefits and weaknesses

Answer 10

Different participants in each condition of the IV.
Strength- people only do one IV so there is no chance of learning/improvement (practice effects), there’s also no fatigue effects.
Weaknesses- there are participant variables as there’s different people doing each IV.
- usually needs more participants so is practically difficult

Question 11

Explain repeated measures design and the strengths and weaknesses

Answer 11

Each participant does both conditions of the IV.
STRENTHS- it controls participant variables as both sets of participants do both conditions.
-requires fewer people
WEAKNESSES- it takes longer for each participant to complete it as the do it twice.
- there may be order effects including practice effects or fatigue.

Question 12

Explain Matched pairs Design and its strengths and weaknesses.

Answer 12

Each person only does one condition of the IV, but are matched with another person doing the other condition on some important extraneous variable (e.g. IQ).
STRENGTHS- there are no problems with order effects
- the research gains control over extraneous variables
WEAKNESSES- the main weakness is that is can be impractical to match people at the beginning of the experiment.
- there are other participant variables that researchers cannot match participants on.

Question 13

What is counterbalancing in repeated measures design?

Answer 13

Half the participants do conditions in one particular order and the other half do the conditions in the opposite order- this is done to balance possible order effects.

Question 14

What are the different experimental methods?

Answer 14

• laboratory
• field
• natural And quasi experiments

Question 15

Lab experiment

Answer 15

Conducted in a controlled environment.
Participants are aware they’re taking part in an experiment but may not know the aim.
Poor ecological validity.

Question 16

Field experiment

Answer 16

Conducted in real world environments e.g. A hospital ward.

Less likely that participants know they’re in an experiment and there is less control over extraneous variables.

Question 17

Natural experiment

Answer 17

Where the IV has not been manipulated by the experimenter, but has changed or occurred naturally (the terrorist attacks on 9/11 gave a natural opportunity to study the effects on pregnant women. They’re unplanned.

Question 18

Quasi experiment

Answer 18

The independent variable has not been manipulated but the experimenter has still carefully planned it. The most common type of experiment is where researchers investigate the differences between men and women on a certain variable.

Question 19

What is quantitative data

Answer 19

Information from an experiment that is gathers in the form of numbers

Question 20

What are demand characteristics

Answer 20

The features of a study that may bias the participants to behave in a certain way as they may guess the purpose of the study and change their behaviour (screw you effect)

Question 21

Define reliability

Answer 21

Extent to which findings of measures have been repeated with similar results of the extent to which a measure is consistent.
Reliability=consistency

Question 22

Types of reliability

Answer 22

Inter-rater reliability - more than one researcher agrees with one another’s results.
Test-retest reliability - the test is done again on the same sample of participants. Looking for a high correlation between results

Question 23

Replicability?

Answer 23

The ability to repeat a study over and over in exactly the same way.

Question 24

Define validity

Answer 24

Results that are accurate and true. Accurately investigates what it intends to.

Question 25

Types of validity

Answer 25

Ecological validity- we can generalise it to real life
Temporal validity- we can generalise it to several years ago.
Concurrent validity- assessing validity by comparing the results with another relevant measure. See if there’s a correlation between two things.

Question 26

Types of data

Answer 26

Primary data- your own data
Secondary data- someone else’s data
Meta Analysis- a collection of lots of different pieces of data from different experimenters and researchers,

Question 27

Time sampling

Answer 27

In this the observer will record everything that is happening in the individual or group for a particular period of time. E.g. Every 30 seconds they’ll record what is happening

Question 28

Qualitative data

Answer 28

Data recorded in non-numerical form.