Research methods Flashcards
naturalistic
take place in a setting or context where the target behaviour would usually occur
controlled
watching and recording behaviour within a structured environement
particicpant
the researcher becomes a member of the group whose behaviour they are watching and recording
non participant
the researcher remains outside of the group whose behaviour they are watching and recording
covert
participants’ behaviour is watched and recorded without their knowledge or consent
overt
participants’ behaviour is watched and recorded with their knowledge or consent
event sampling
a target behaviour or event is first established then the researcher records this event every time it occurs
time sampling
a target individual or group is first established then the researcher records their behaviour in a fixed time frame
questionnaires
a set of written questions used to asses a persons thoughts and/or experiences
structured interviews
made up of pre-determined questions that are asked in a fixed order
unstructured interview
no set questions, there is a general aim that a certain topic will be discussed and interaction tends to be free-flowing
pilot studies
small scale trial runs of a piece of research aims to spot flaws with the research design to improve validity
directional hypothesis
certain of a result
non directional hypothesis
not sure which way the result will occur
null hypothesis
no difference or no relationship or relationship is due to chance
opportunity sampling
involves using anyone who happens to be available at the time and is willing to be involved
random sampling
small group is selected from the sampling frame where everyone an an equal chance of being chosen
stratified sampling
sample has the same proportions as the target population
volunteer sampling
involves participants becoming part of a study in response to an advert or notice
systematic sample
every nth member of the target population is selected
independent group design
participants are allocated to different groups where each group represents one experimental condition
repeated measures
all participants take part in all conditions of the experiment
matched pairs
pairs of participants are first matched on some variables that may affect the dependent variable , then one does each condition
informed consent
gives permission for the task
deception
participant is lied to
right to withdraw
participant can leave the study at any point of take their data
protection from harm
participants cant be harmed physically or mentally
privacy
participants shouldn’t feel uncomfortable
anonymity/ confidentiality
protecting their identity
reliability
repeating a study or test, and getting consistent findings
validity
true picture of what we are intending to actually measure
test retest
test is carried out on the same participants more than once and the consistency of results is recorded by correlating he two sets of data
inter observer reliability
checked by having more than one observer
face validity
involves asking an expert
concurrent validity
refers to the extent to which a psychological measure relates to an existing measure in the field
interval
data which comes in the form of a numerical value where the difference between points is standardised and meaningful
ordinal
data which is placed into some kind of order of scale
nominal
data which can be separated into discrete categories which dont overlap
type 1 error
false positive, rejecting the null hypothesis when results were due to chance
type 2 error
a false negative, accepting the null hypothesis when results were actually significant
