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Research Methods Flashcards

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1
Q

A hypothesis is a p________ and t_______ statement of the relationship between two variables.

A

Prediction and testable statement

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2
Q

Directional (or one-tailed) hypothesis=

A

A direct and specific effect between dependent and independent variables (e.g how one increases the other or decreases)

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3
Q

Non-directional (or two-tailed) hypothesis=

A

No specific effect, only that one impacts the other (e.g. Diet affects health)

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4
Q

When is an alternative hypothesis written?

A

When you are using a non-experimental method (e.g. An observation or a survey)

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5
Q

What is operationalisation?

A

Putting variables into a form that can be easily tested, so defining them AS PRECISELY AS POSSIBLE.

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6
Q

How might you operationalise variables so to operationalise the hypothesis?

A

Original hypothesis= people work better rather than noisy conditions.

Variables:

IV= quiet vs. noisy environment 
DV= work better

Operationalised hypothesis= people will obtain a higher score on a memory test when tested in quiet (no sound) rather than noisy (radio playing) conditions.

Variables:

IV= (quiet) No sound
IV= (noisy) Radio playing

DV= (work better) Obtain a higher score on a memory test.

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7
Q

What are the features of a laboratory study?

A
  • variables are carefully controlled
  • participants are aware that they are taking part in the study
  • participants may not know the (true) aim(s) of the study
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8
Q

Examples of a lab study-

A

Milgram- obedience to unjust authority

Skinner- positive and negative reinforcement

Bandura- Bobo Doll experiment

Pavlov- salivary reflex in dogs

Schemas study (highly controlled environment)

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9
Q

Advantages of lab study-

A
  • High degree of control minimises extraneous variables
  • High degree of control leads to higher internal validity
  • High degree of control= greater likelihood of establishing cause- effect relationship
  • High degree of control + careful design= greater potential for replicability
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10
Q

Disadvantages of lab study-

A
  • High degree of control may lead to lack of ecological validity
  • High degree of control gives an increased risk of demand characteristics
  • High degree of control gives an increased risk of experimenter effects
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11
Q

What are the features of a field study?

A
  • experimental investigations carried out in NATURAL SETTING (e.g. homes, schools)
  • involves direct control of IV + allocation of participants to groups
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12
Q

Examples of a field study-

A
  • Hofling et al- obedience in a hospital setting (from nurses who were asked to administer a drug they’d never heard of)
  • “What would you do?” experiments
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13
Q

Advantages of field study-

A
  • Improved ecological validity (because behaviour studied is more realistic)
  • Decreased risk of demand characteristics
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14
Q

Disadvantages of field study-

A
  • Less control over extraneous variables
  • Reduced internal validity
  • Potentially more time consuming
  • Potentially more expensive
  • More difficult to replicate study
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15
Q

What are the features of a natural experiment-

A
  • Makes use of NATURALLY OCCURRING DIFFERENCES (e.g. People who smoke and people who don’t) but could still be changed (unlike quasi)
  • Researcher cannot control IV
  • Researcher cannot allocate participants to conditions
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16
Q

What are the features of a Quasi experiment?

A
  • IV is naturally occurring
  • IV cannot be made to vary by anyone (e.g. gender differences)
  • DV may be measured in a lab
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17
Q

Advantages of Natural and Quasi-

A
  • Reduces demand characteristics

- Allows for comparisons between different types of people

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18
Q

Disadvantages of Natural and Quasi-

A
  • Difficult to make causal conclusions (e.g. smokers may go to the gym less but not because they smoke)
  • No control over extraneous variables causing the result
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19
Q

What is an ethical issue?

A

The science of moral principles or rules of behaviour with the potential of causing psychological or physical harm.

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20
Q

What is the BPS Code of Ethics?

A

It promotes ethical behaviour among psychologists by showing clear ethical principles to protect the public from harm.

The four key principles are

1) respect
2) competence
3) responsibility
4) integrity

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21
Q

Name the five main ethical issues.

A

1) Deception
2) Informed consent
3) Protection of participants
4) The right to withdraw
5) Confidentiality and anonymity

Dece(nt) with pro(fessional) con-con

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22
Q

How might you deal with the ethical issue DECEPTION?

A
  • Avoidance from withholding information or deceiving participants about the nature of purpose of investigation. (However it may be necessary to deceive participants in some cases e.g. If it will cause participant effects)
  • Debriefing session: making sure that participant leaves the study in the same state that they entered (however is de-briefing sufficient?)
  • Any deception should be approved by an ETHICS COMMITTEE (however cost- benefit decisions can be prone to subjective judgements)
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23
Q

How might you deal with the ethical issue INFORMED CONSENT?

A
  • Participants should agree to participate
  • Participants should be aware of the nature and purpose of the experiment
  • Special care should be taken with children or vulnerable adults as participants (however to what extent do psychologists say that a study is safe for children and vulnerable adults?)
  • prior general consent or presumptive consent obtained. (However these could be very inaccurate and cause major problems)

PRIOR GENERAL CONSENT= obtaining prior consent from participant to see whether they’d be happy taking part in a study involving deception. If they agree, it would be okay to include them in future research involving deception.

PRESUMPTIVE CONSENT= taking random sample of population and introducing them to research involving deception. If they would be happy to take part, we can generalise from this to the wider population.

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24
Q

How might you deal with the ethical issue PROTECTION?

A

Risk of harm:
- lack of deception so participants are aware of potential harm
- responsibility from researchers to protect participants
Risk of stress:
- Right to withdraw
- Debriefing session
Animals:
- No unnecessary harm as many people argue that animals have emotions

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25
Q

How might you deal with the ethical issue of THE RIGHT TO WITHDRAW?

A
  • Participants should be aware of the fact that they can withdraw at any time.
  • there should be no temptations to stay (often participants are paid or rewarded for their participation which may mean that they feel obligated to continue with the study)
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26
Q

How might you deal with the ethical issue CONFIDENTIALITY AND ANONYMITY?

A
  • Participant names not recorded
  • No obvious links in data to specific individuals
  • warning to individuals if anonymity/ confidentiality cannot be guaranteed
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27
Q

What are some of the limitations of the BPS Code of Ethics?

A

Cultural Variations: only applies to Britain and so other cultures may have other ethical concerns or not be impacted by the stated ethical concerns.

Enforcing the guidelines: difficult application and lack of motivation for people to follow code (e.g. No deterrence if not followed)

28
Q

Name the three different types of experimental design.

A

Matched pairs design
Independent groups design
Repeated measures design

29
Q

What is an INDEPENDENT GROUPS DESIGN?

A

Different participants used in each condition of the independent variable (done by random allocation)

30
Q

Strengths of INDEPENDENT GROUPS DESIGN.

A
  • No risk of practice effects
  • Boredom effects are less likely
  • Participants less likely to show demand characteristics
31
Q

What are demand characteristics ?

A

Cues or hints which make participants aware of how they should behave

32
Q

Weaknesses of INDEPENDENT GROUPS DESIGN.

A
  • No control of individual differences (participant variables)
  • Twice as many participants needed (so less economical than repeated measures) - TRY COUNTERBALANCING!
33
Q

What is a REPEATED MEASURES DESIGN?

A

The same participants take part in each condition of he IV.

34
Q

Strengths of REPEATED MEASURES DESIGN.

A
  • Participant variables are controlled when you use the same participant in each condition.
  • More economical (as fewer participants are needed)
35
Q

Weaknesses of REPEATED MEASURES DESIGN.

A
  • Risk of order effects
  • Participants may show demand characteristics as there is more opportunity for experimenter to drop subtle hints/ cues in each condition.

COUNTERBALANCE!!

36
Q

What is a MATCHED PAIRS DESIGN?

A

Participants in one condition are matched with similar participants in another condition.

37
Q

Strengths of MATCHES PAIRS DESIGN.

A
  • Tackles participant variables

- Eliminates practice effects

38
Q

Weaknesses of MATCHED PAIRS DESIGN.

A
  • Time consuming
  • Difficult to know exactly which characteristics are required to match
  • In results, some participant variables may be ignored as they are thought to all be controlled
39
Q

What is an extraneous variable?

A

An “extra” variable which affects the DV but isn’t the IV e.g. Practice or order effects

40
Q

What are confounding variables?

A

Extraneous variables which have not been controlled. They are usually the result of a bad investigator.

41
Q

Extraneous variables could be s__________or p__________ or both.

A

Situational or participant

42
Q

What are investigator effects?

A

Favourability of one investigator over another (from participants) causing them to perform differently e.g. A stutter, telling jokes etc.

43
Q

Internal validity=

A

Validity within experiment e.g. Are there any extraneous variables?

Participant awareness and lack of experimental control may be a THREAT to internal validity.

44
Q

External validity=

A

Application to other settings e.g. Population validity and ecological validity

45
Q

Why might researchers not want participants to be aware that they are participating in a study?

A

Social desirability bias

Increased attention (Hawthorne effect)

Ruining experiment due to disagreement with it

46
Q

How might you reduce participant effects?

A
  • Lie about the aim
  • Use distractor questions
  • Independent measures or Matched pairs design
  • Single-blind design
47
Q

How might one reduce investigator effects?

A
  • Double-blind design

- Multiple experimenters (inter-rater reliability)

48
Q

Face validity=

A

Does it look like it’s testing what you aim to test?

49
Q

Concurrent validity=

A

Does the test get the same results as a DIFFERENT test measuring the same thing?

Same test would be testing reliability.

50
Q

A study that is low in _____ validity is also low in ____ validity .

A

Internal, External

51
Q

What is ecological validity?

A

The degree to which a study can be generalised to other settings (including the real world- “representativeness”)

52
Q

Internal reliability=

A

Testing whether something is consistent within itself

53
Q

External reliability=

A

Testing whether the same test carried out by someone else will produce the same results.

54
Q

Two interviewers producing the same outcome due to consistency is known as…

A

Inter- interviewer reliability

55
Q

What is the split- half method and how can it improve internal reliability?

A

It measures the extent to which all parts of the test contribute equally to what is being measured. The test is split in half and one half of the results are compared with the other half.

56
Q

What is test- retest as a means of improving external validity?

A

It measures the stability of a test over time. A typical assessment would involve giving participants the same test on two different occasions. If the same or similar results are obtained, external validity can be established.

57
Q

Name the five sampling methods.

A

1) Opportunity sampling
2) Random sampling
3) Volunteer sampling
4) Systematic sampling
5) Stratified sampling

58
Q

Types of data (BLACK- NOIR).

A

Nominal (data is in categories)

Ordinal (data is ordered in some way)

Interval (data measured using units of equal intervals) - can have negative values

Ratio (there is a true zero point)

59
Q

What are measures of central tendency?

A

Informing about central values in a set of data ( mean, median and mode)

60
Q

What are measures of dispersion?

A

Informing of how dispersed (spread out) the data is (range and standard deviation)

61
Q

Data that is normally distributed is s______ and the mean, median and mode are about the same.

A

Symmetrical

62
Q

What is different about negatively and positively skewed graphs?

A
  • the mean, median and mode are not the same

- there are anomalies at the end of the set of data

63
Q

Why do we use statistical tests in Psychology?

A

Researchers use statistical tests to test the hypotheses of an investigation by establishing whether the result is significant or not I.e. Has it happened by chance?

64
Q

What is a null hypothesis?

A

A hypothesis which predicts that there will be no significant difference.

65
Q

What is an alternative/ research hypothesis?

A

A hypothesis which predicts that a significant difference will be found.

It is either directional or non directional.

66
Q

When would you use the Sign Test?

A

To look for consistent differences between two sets of data.

It is used for related data (repeated measures or matched pairs).

It can be used when data is nominal or above.

67
Q

How would you carry out the sign test?

A

1) decide if you have a directional (one-tailed) or non- directional (two-tailed) hypothesis.
2) if you predict that one condition should have higher values than the other, call it condition B.
3) place data in a table and allocate a + or - sign depending on whether condition B is larger or smaller than condition A.
4) count and record how many + and how many -
5) the test statistic S is the lower number of these two.
6) look up the critical value on the table (N= the number of scores, omitting any where the values are the same)
7) look up the critical value for directional or non- directional hypothesis at 5% (P= 0.05)
8) compare value of S to the critical value.

For non- directional hypothesis: equal to or smaller than = significant

For directional hypothesis: equal to or smaller than and difference in expected direction = significant

Psychology (6 decks)

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