Research Methods Flashcards
What is a hypothesis?
A precise testable statement that states the relationship between the IV and DV. (You can also think of it as a prediction). e.g. People with an audience will throw more balls into a bucket from 2m away than people without an audience.
What is the difference between the null hypothesis and the alternative hypothesis?
The null hypothesis is the statement of NO relationship occurring. The alternative hypothesis is when there is a relationship.
(It’s annoyingly called alternative as it is the alternative to the null hypothesis but it is your actual hypothesis)
What is the dependent variable?
What is being measured. e.g. how many balls a person gets in the bucket.
What is the independent variable?
The thing being changed/manipulated. Normally this is the two different conditions of the experiment e.g. audience or no audience.
What is operationalisation?
Making the variables measurable and precise. e.g. instead of “people with an audience will throw more balls in a bucket”, you could operationalise it like this - “people with an audience of 6 people will throw more tennis balls into a 40cm diameter bucket from 2m away”
What is an extraneous variable?
A “nuisance” variable that might affect your dependent variable e.g. the colour of the room or the ball skill of the participants.
What is a standardised procedure?
Using exactly the same method and instructions for all the participants in your study.
What is randomisation?
This is simply randomising things in your experiment e.g. randomly allocating participants into the different groups or giving participants words in a random order for a memory experiment for example.
What is the difference between quantitative and qualitative data?
Quantitative = numerical data = easy to analyse lots of it Qualitative = word data e.g. transcript of an interview = harder and more time consuming to analyse but richer, deeper data
What is a lab experiment and + & - of them?
An experiment done in a lab!
+ Highly controlled therefore less extraneous variables
- Not very true to real life, therefore low external validity
What is a field experiment and + & - of them?
An experiment done in a realistic setting.
+ Not so easy to control therefore more extraneous variables
- True to real life, therefore high external validity
What is a natural experiment and + & - of them?
An experiment where you take advantage of (and therefore don’t manipulate or create) an independent variable that has already happened. e.g. the effects of a hurricane on stress levels. The independent variable is hurricane or no hurricane so you can take advantage of one that has happened (you wouldn’t create a hurricane yourself!)
+ Normally very real life situations
- Don’t happen very often - can be difficult to find
What are the 3 experimental DESIGNS?
Independent groups, repeated measures, matched pairs.
What is independent groups and + & -
Split your participants into different groups for each level of the independent variable. e.g. half with audience, half without audience.
+ No order effects
- Participant variables can be a problem (e.g. you might end up with all the basketball pros in one group!)
What is repeated measures and + & -?
All participants go through all the conditions of the experiment
+ Eliminates participant variables (the basketball pros do both conditions!)
- Order effects - participants may be tired or bored when they have to do the experiment for the second time so the second condition might suffer. Therefore depends which order they do the conditions in.
