Research Methods Flashcards
Define informed consent
The participants must know what they are taking part in, in written form as a contract or agreement
Define right to withdraw
Can leave study without prejudice and are not forced to give reasoning or carry on the study
Define confidentiality
No personal details or results are shared with anyone outside the study
Define competence
Qualified to carry out procedures/ appropriate care afterwards and during the study
Define protection of participants
Participants have to leave the study in a better or the same state/ way as when they started
Define debrief
Telling participants and explaining fully what and why they used the experiment
When explaining the results and experiment, the participants have the right to withdraw their results/data
Define deception:
Active
Passive
Active - lying to the participant directly
Passive - avoiding giving all the information
Define experimental method
A research method that can find CASUAL RELATIONSHIPS between variables
Define independent variable
The thing the investigator deliberately changes to see the effect on the dependant variable.
Define dependent variable
The thing the investigator measures to see if it has been affected by the independent variable
Define extraneous variable:
Participant
Situational
Anything apart from the independent variable that could affect the dependent variable
Participant-the people taking part
Situational-the environment
Define operationalised
Putting variables in a study into practise and specifying how they will be measured
Define hypothesis
A statement predicting the relationship between two variables
Define null hypothesis
A prediction that there will be no relationship between the variables
Define falsification of hypothesis
The statement must be written in a way that it could be proven wrong
Define one tailed hypothesis
Stating exactly how the independent variable will affect the dependent variable (exactly what the difference is)
Define two tailed hypthesis
A hypothesis that says there will be a difference ( the Independent variable will affect the Dependent variable) but doesn’t say what the difference will be
Define experimental design
How we allocate participants into the conditions OR how participants experience different levels of the Independent variable
Define repeated measures design
When the participants all take part in all levels of the Independent variable
Give an advantage and disadvantage of repeated measures design
A- don’t require as many participants (easier, quicker, cost effective)
-participant variables are fully controlled and wont affect the result
D- participants performance might get better or worse with practice or repetition (order effects)
-participants do all levels of the Independent variable so are more likely to guess the aim and change their behaviour (demand characteristics)
Define Independent design
Each participant only takes part in one level of the Independent variable
Give an advantage and a disadvantage of independent design
A- removes order effects, the fact that participants performance might get better or worse through practice or repetition.
-less likely to guess the aim
D- participant variable is fully controlled, it wont influence the results.
-require more participants (harder, slower, less cost effective)
Define matched pairs design
When each participant only takes part in one level of the Independent variable (like independent design) but they’re are matched with participants in the other group on the basis of relevant characteristics
Give an advantage and a disadvantage of matched pairs design
A- results are more valid, reduces influence of order affect and demand characteristics
D-difficult to find people that have exactly the same characteristics
Define participant variables
Different people in the study have different characteristics so you have to be careful when composing the results e.g. Age
Define order effects
When a participant does a task more than once in a repeated measures design their performance may get better or worse after practise/repitition
Define counterbalancing
Only in repeated measures design the group is split in half. One group does ‘task A/task B’ the other does ‘task B/task A’ (ABBA method)
Define demand characteristics
Any clues in the situation that cause the participants to change their behaviour/they can guess the aim/how they are expected to act
Define random allocation
Randomly assign participants to groups/levels of the Independent variable/ equal chance of being selected to either group
