Research Methods Flashcards
What is a lab experiment
IV is manipulated by the researcher and the experiment is carried out in a lab or other controlled setting away from normal environment
Advantage and disadvantages of lab experiments
Advantage: Easy to replicate and you can be certain that the DV is affected by the IV
Disadvantage: low ecological validity as its artificial setting and the participants may behave in a way they think the experiments want them to behave in
What is a field experiment
IV is manipulated by the researched but the experiment is done in normal surroundings eg college
Advantage and disadvantage of field experiments
Advantage: higher ecological validity, behaviour more likely to be normal
Disadvantage: lack of control-extraneous variables may affect the the DV not the IV, ethical issues- not being aware of the experiment
What is a quasi experiment
IV is naturally occurring eg the weather, not manipulated by the researcher
Advantage and disadvantage of quasi experiments
Advantage: can study effects of variables that you can’t manipulate p, high ecological validity
Disadvantage: difficult to replicate due to naturally occurring IV, lack of control over extraneous variables may affect results
What is repeated measures?
Advantage and disadvantage?
Use of the same people for both conditions
Ad: participant variables don’t affect results
Dis:order effects -fatigue or practice so will need extra materials
What is independent measures?
Advantage and disadvantage?
Use different people on each condition
Ad:order effects doesn’t affect results
Dis: participant variables-differences between participants may affect results
What is matched groups/pairs?
Advantage and disadvantage?
Using different groups of people, but who have similar characteristics for each condition
Ad:benefits of both designs -no order effects and no participant variables
Dis:complicated to recruit participants
What is an extraneous variable
An undesirable variable that may affect the relationship between the DV and IV
What are participant variables
Characteristics of the individual that may influence the results eg age or gender
What are situational variables
Any feature of situation which influences participants behaviour;therefore results are affected eg order effects
Can be controlled by matched groups or independent
Don’t tell them the aim to limit demand characteristics
What is an alternative hypothesis
Predicts that the IV will affect the DV eg there will be a significant difference
What is a null hypothesis
Predicts that the IV wil not affect the DV
Any difference will be as a result of chance factors
What is a two tailed hypothesis
States that the IV will have a significant effect on the DV but it doesn’t state the direction in which it affects the DV eg the sun will affect the colour of hair
What is a one tailed hypothesis
Predicts the IV will affect the DV and in which way eg the sun will make hair lighter
What is operationalisation
Process of making variables psychically measurable or testable
What is self selecting?
Advantage and disadvantage?
When people volunteer to take part by the sight of posters or leaflets
Ad: ethical and relatively easy to get participants
Dis:biased based on who volunteers, may not get many volunteers
What is opportunity sampling?
Advantage and disadvantage?
When a group of participants are chosen as they are the most readily available at given time and place
Ad:quick to get participants and easy as no advertising
Dis:biased based on where you go less ethical as they may feel obliged to take part
What is random sampling?
Advantage and disadvantage?
Each me,beer of target population has an equal chance of being selected
Ad:representative of target population
Dis:difficult to ensure all names are included, biased based on those who are chosen and those who are willing to do it
What is snowball sampling?
Advantage and disadvantage?
When a few participants are asked to ask their friends and family to join in and then to ask their friends and family
Ad: only need to get a few participants before the rest are recruited
Dis:biased as the participants know eachother and may have similar characteristics
What is Primary data
Collecting data through experimental task
What’s secondary data
Collecting data through research of what already exists
What is quantitative data?
Advantage & disadvantage
Numbers, stats, percentages etc
Ad:easy to compare
Dis:lack ecological validity
What is qualitative data
Advantage & disadvantage
Descriptions, words pictures
Ad:quotes, emotions
Dis:harder to analyse
What is measure of dispersion
Look at how data is spread out around the typical score
Range
Variance
Standard deviation
What is variances and how do you work it out
How spread apart the data is from mean score
1) calculate mean score for conditions
2) minus the mean from the participants scores-difference
3) square each difference
4) add all differences together
4) all squared differences divided by n-1
What is standard deviation
Putting variance into same units as original data
Square root variance
What are open questions
Advantage and disadvantage
Have a blank space for participants to write what they want underneath
Ad:get feelings as it personal
Dis:not a lot of data to compare
What are Closed questions
Advantage and disadvantage
Answers are given, participant had to choose their answer
Ad:easy to analyse and compare
Dis:no explanation
What are rating scales
Advantage and disadvantage
Even numbered scales which force participants to chose a positive or negative
Ad: quick and easy to do
Dis: tedious and no more information
What are likert scales?
Advantage and disadvantage
Statements followed by a 5 point scale half a re negative statements and half are positive statements
Ad: keeps participants aware and choosing for themselves and not stand response set
Dis:may choose the middle choice which is neither or
What are semantic differentials
A statement followed by two contradicting words with a scale in between so participants choose which they think best represents the topic
Eg college
Big _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Small
What is nominal data
Lowest level of data
It’s a headcount of how many participants did one thing as opposed to those who did another
Eg a record is made of how many students cycle to college
What is a structured interview?
Advantage and disadvantage?
Same questions are asked in the same order for every participant, closed questions often asked.
Ad:same questions standardises and makes replicable, and easy to compare
Dis:further clarification prevented
What is a semi structured interview?
Advantage disadvantage?
Set of questions all to be asked, but the phrasing and timing of them is up to interviewer, invite open ended answers.
Ad:use of additional questions seeks clarification
Dis:constrained around ore determined questions, hard to compare as phrasing’s of questions will be different
What is an unstructured interview?
Advantage and disadvantage?
Topics to discuss but questions are up to interviewer, more like a conversation as questions are developed in response to interviewee’s answers.
Ad:freedom to ask questions on the spot, info gathered that may not have been revealed by pre determined questions.
Dis:difficult to compare as questions may all be different
What are the advantages and disadvantages of questionnaires?
Easy to collect data from large groups, easy to keep confidential
Difficult to design good questionnaires, response rate is low and respondents may be untruthful
What are the advantages and disadvantages of interviews?
Good to meet face to face as can read body language, build a rapport with interviewee
Only see one at a time-time consuming, lack of confidentiality so all info may not be revealed
What is ordinal data?
Rank order in which data can be placed, results placed in order from highest to lowest, gap between the results not taken into account
What is interval or ratio data?
Takes into account gaps between data values
Interval data can go into negative values
Ratio data can’t go into negative values
What are the ethical guidelines?
CONSENT:participants should give informed consent
WITHDRAWAL:participants should have to right to withdraw from research
DECEPTION:researchers should avoid deceiving participants wherever possible
PROTECTION FROM HARM:participants should be protected from physical and mental harm
CONFIDENTIALITY:data should be kept confidential
DEBRIEFING:participants should receive debrief so they leave experiment in same mind as when they arrived
What are the benefits of research being ethical?
Participants treated well
Enhances reputation of psychology as academic discipline
Researchers more likely to get other participants for future psychological research if they are treated well
What are the drawbacks of research being ethical?
Places limits on the sort of research being carried out (prevents research that might be really while being done)
Reduces validity if participants know the aim of a study (may behave like they think they should)
Sampling bias if participants can withdraw (get left with a sample that’s not generalisable)
What are some of the core studies that link to the individual/situational debate?
Piliavin
Milgram
What is the individual/situational debate?
Individual: suggests that behaviour is due to persons own characteristics and personality-their personality changes how they behave
Situational: suggests that behaviour is due to the situation or circumstances that a person is in, situation determines the behaviour
What are the strengths and weaknesses of the individual side of the debate
Ad: helps understand why people behave the way they do
Useful when placing people in jobs or relationships based on personality
Dis:limited usefulness, if personality is how they behave then it’s difficult to changes
Reductionist-misses out situational factors
What are the strengths and weaknesses of the situational side of the debate?
Ad:can alter behaviour by altering the situations that create it
Helps us to understand why people behave the way they do
Dis:socially sensitive-used as an excuse to explain away bad behaviour
Reductionist misses out the individual factors
What is the nature side of the nature nurture debate?
Suggests we are a product of out genetic inheritance, we behave due to the factors innate within us
What is the nurture side of the nature nurture debate?
Suggests we are products of our upbringing, we behave due to the experiences and personal encounters we’ve had
What are the strengths and weaknesses of nature side of the debate
Strength: potentially useful-points towards genetic modification or other biological interventions, not ethnocentric as biological factors affect people in same way anywhere
Weakness: limited usefulness, not possible to change persons nature, reductionist:misses out nurture impact, socially sensitive if identifying a problem that someone can’t change about them selves
What are the strengths and weaknesses of the nurture side of the debate?
Can be useful, suggests ways to change behaviour by changing how child is brought up
Reductionist- missing out impact of nature, might be ethnocentric as countries vary in how people are brought up, socially sensitive leading children to blame parents for how they are brought up
What debates link to nature nurture debate
Bandura
Blakemore and cooper
What core studies relate to usefulness of research?
Loftus and Palmer-leading questions
Bandura-children’s behaviour
What are the benefits and drawbacks
of usefulness of research
Benefit: positive practical applications improve quality of lives, more likely to get funding if has practical applications, improve credibility as academic subject
Drawbacks:put to bad use-socially negative uses, if two lawyers make use of same psychological insight then usefulness of research is cancelled out, if research is deemed to be useful then guidelines may be broke.
What is the reductionist side of the reductionist holism debate?
Human behaviour is explained by one single point eg hormones alone
The research should be extremely controlled to establish cause and effects
What is the holism side of the reductionist holism debate?
Human behaviour is viewed as the product of different influences which all interact
Research should be case studies that capture all different influences on behaviour
What are the strengths and weaknesses of reductionism
Strength:Psychological research can be more scientific as test impact of one thing at a time , More accurate conclusions
Weakness: human behaviour too complex to narrow down to single factor explanations, lack ecological validity as highly controlled experiments
What are the strengths and weaknesses of the holism debate?
Strength: more complete explanations of complex behaviours, research isn’t limited to a single area of perspective
Weakness: difficult to pin down the most significant effect, only be verified by separating the factors out (reductionist) and testing one by one to confirm they have an impact
What does a subject have to be in order to be classed as a science? 3 things
1) objective - factual
2) replicable - repeatable
3) falsifiable - can’t prove wrong
What studies link to psychology as a science?
Are scientific - milgram and piliavin
Not - FREUD
What are the benefits and drawbacks of research being scientific ?
Benefits: quantitative data-easily analysed, less vulnerable to being bias by researcher, lab experiments allow cause and effects to be inferred, controlled so replicable
Drawbacks: lack qualitative data, research is reductionist as test impact of single factor, lab experiments reduce ecological validity
What is socially sensitive research?
Areas that could have a negative effect on either the people being researched or the class of people that they represent.
Benefits and drawbacks of socially sensitive research?
Benefit: answer important questions that improve our understanding of human behaviour, lead to practical applications that improve quality of people’s lives
Drawbacks: involves potential harm being caused to participants in the research, lead to people beyond survey being stigmatised, insights it provides used negatively
What core studies relate to socially sensitive research
Yerkes and Gould - isolates different classes and ethnic minority’s
Bandura - imitating reflects on parent are they bad parents? Offensive
NOT SOCIALLY SENSITIVE IS COGNITIVE AREA
Moray and loftus n Palmer - same for everyone due to biological factors
What is the free will side of the free will determinism debate?
Proposes that behaviour is the product of our own choice and are ab,e to choose how we behave
What is the determinism side of the freewill determinism debate?
Behaviour is caused by factors outside of our control, could be genetic or to do with upbringing or physical/social circumstances
What core studies fit into the freewilll determinism debate?
Determinism-Bandura, loftus and Palmer
Freewill - milgram 35% of participants chose not to carry on
What are the strengths and weaknesses of freewill Sid elf the debate?
Strength :Not socially sensitive, and useful as people can be help accountable for their behaviour
Weakness: unscientific, just explain is as we can’t any other way, socially sensitive as people may find it uncomfortable being told they are responsible for their actions
What are the strengths and weaknesses of determinism side of the debate?
Strength:open to positive uses if we know what causes wanted behaviour we can make it occur again, scientific as explanations come from controlled experiments in which cause and effect is established
Weakness:negative uses-get people acquitted , reductionist as behaviour isn’t explained so easily, socially sensitive when being told not in charge of behaviour
What is internal validity
Whether the experiment was an accurate test of what’s being tested
Research doesn’t have lots of extraneous variables and it’s the effect of independent variable on dependent variable that’s being measured
What is external validity
Can it be generalised from
What is external reliability
Was sample large enough to show consistent effect
Does the test score vary from one to another
What is internal reliability
Was procedure standardised and replicable
Consistency of results across items within that test
What are the measures of central tendency
Shows middle point, or most frequent number.
Mean, median, mode
What is measures of dispersion
How spread out scores are
Range, variance, standard deviation
What is variance
Measures how spread out they are
Variance of zero-indicates values are all identical
Large variance-indicates data very spread out around the mean
How do you calculate the variance
1-work out mean
2-for each participant, subtract the mean from their score this gives the difference
3-square the difference
4-work our mean of all d^2
What’s the standard deviation
Refer to it in terms of original category eg number of correct spellings
How do you work out standard deviation
Square root of variance
What are the specific non-parametric inferential tests
Chi square. Binomial sign. X
Mann Whitney. Wilcoxon signed. Spearman rho
What’s a type 1 error
What’s a type 2 error
1-when null hypothesis is falsely rejected - false positive, there isn’t a genuine effect
2-when null hypothesis is falsely accepted - false negative, there is a genuine effect
What’s Face validity
How good test or research looks to be testing what it it’s meant to be t sting
What’s construct validity
Test or study measures the actual behaviour it sets out to measure
Eg test for intelligence shouldn’t assess general knowledge
What’s concurrent validity
Test or research gives same results as another test or study which claim to measure the same behaviour
What’s criterion validity
Refers to how much one measure predicts the value of another measure
Eg IQ test predicting school success
What’s population validity
How accurately the test or study measures behaviour in the general population
What’s ecological validity
How real life is the research
What is demand characteristics
When participants interpret the aims and change their behaviours to fit the aims
What is social desirability bias
Where participants try to present an image of themselves as being good members of society-not
What’s socially desirable
Responses that the participants feel will please the researcher and present them in good light
What’s inter rater reliability
Where two observers consistently rate or observe the same behaviour and the two sets of ratings are correlated to ensure that observations are not subjective
What’s a participant observation
Where the researchers or observers are part of or pretending to be part of the group that they are observing
What’s a non participant observation
Where observer is not a member of the group being studied
What’s a structured observation
What’s an unstructured observation
- impose structure to meet aim of observation (what behaviours in particular that they are interested in recording )
- continuously record and observe everything
What is a covert observation
Where the participant doesn’t know they are being observed
What is an overt observation
Where the participant knows that they are being observed and have given their consent or been made aware of being observed because of observers presence
What’s a strength and weakness of unstructured and structured observations
- lots of detail, however hard to reveal anything significant and hard to summarise and make comparisons
- allows for comparisons to be made, however when only settle on looking at a few certain behaviours may miss something very important.
Strength and weakness of naturalistic and control observations
- May see natural normal behaviour but extraneous variables may influence behaviour
- situation is artificial so not natural behaviour, but no extraneous variables affecting behaviour-high construct validity
What is event sampling
Where an event is recorded each time it happens
What is time point sampling
What is time event sampling
Record what participant is doing at fixed intervals
Fixed period of time set for observation
What is counterbalancing
Method of controlling variables - repeated measures
Varying order of presentation of tasks to participants
What referencing is used in psychology
Harvard referencing
In what section of practical report would you find the calculations performed for an inferential stats test?
Appendices
Peer review of a new piece of psychological research should be conducted by?
Another researcher working in same field of psychology
What’s the principle of scientific enquiry
Induction
What type of inferential statistical test assume that the data used in the analysis are drawn from a normally distributed population?
Parametric
In deductive reasoning which comes first?
Data
Observation
Sampling
Theory
Theory
What type of data would not have any information in form of words?
Interval
What are the subsections of report writing
abstract Introduction Method Results Discussion References Appendices
What information is in the abstract
Summary of research, outline of aim, method, participants, results and conclusions
What information is in an introduction of a practical report
- Area of psychology the study is in
- Focus of previous research carried out
- Justify current research and identify aim
What information is in the method section of practical report
- details of how to carry out the study with same conditions
- sampling technique, details of sample such as age gender and number
- experimental design, how participants were allocated
- outline of procedure, timings what happened in the research
What is included in results section of practical reports
- raw data and provide verbal summary’s and descriptive statistics such as measures of central tendency and measures of dispersion
- graphical representation
- inferential statistics to provide evidence for acceptance or rejection of hypothesis
What is included in the discussion section of practical report
- what study had discovered and relating to research in the intro
- evaluations and alternative explanations
- suggestions for improvements
- any works cited should be referenced
What is in the appendices section of practical report
- Labelled to and referenced to throughout body of article
- contain materials, raw data, anything else needed to fully understand and repeat the research
How should a reference be written (Harvard referencing)
Referencing an article: author, date, article title, title of journal it was published in, volume, issue, page numbers
Referencing a book: author, date, publisher, where it was published
Advantage of correlation
Tell us something new, if there’s relationship, which way relationship goes
Good starting point for research if relationship established
Useful when either practical or ethical reasons mean variables not to be manipulated
Disadvantage of correlation
Not cause and effect
Inferential statistical tests not pick up on relationships between co variables
No qualitative data
