Research Methods Part 1: Activity and Part 2: Activity Flashcards
A new hand washing gel is being promoted for use in the clinical environment.
The manufacturers claim that it is as effective as hand washing with soap and water if used correctly.
They carry out an experiment to gather data to support their claim.
1)What are they measuring?
2)Do they need to operationalise anything?
What are they measuring?
They are measuring how effective the handwash is, compared to the soap and water method
Do they need to operationalise anything?
You need to put it in a testable format, so having a control group using soap and water and new group using the handwash and making a method on how you can test it.
I would test it using UV light, get both groups to put the special gel on that represents mess.
A new hand washing gel is being promoted for use in the clinical environment.
The manufacturers claim that it is as effective as hand washing with soap and water if used correctly.
They carry out an experiment to gather data to support their claim.
1) Define the independent and dependent variables?
2) What control issues (confounding variables) might they have?
1) Define the independent and dependent variables?
Independent variables- method of handwashing, hand wash or soap and water.
Dependent variable- how clean the person`s hands are.
2) control variables- how long someone washes their hands for, how dirty someone`s hands are meant to be before testing the hand wash
A questionnaire is to be used to find out about the patients’ experience of trying to make an
appointment to see their GP. Design two items for this questionnaire.
They can be ‘closed’ or ‘open’ but do try to use different answer options; for example a Likert scale
or multi-choice answer or text box.
How difficult was it to make an appointment
1 2 3 4 5
1 very easy
5 very difficult
What were the things that made it difficult?
A researcher studies a group of children aged between 10-12 years from a school in Birmingham.
The study is looking to see whether a food supplement will improve academic performance.
Fifty students in the school are sampled for the study as follows; the first 25 students to arrive at the
school are provided with the food supplement and the last 25 receive a placebo.
Try to answer the following:
1)What would have to be ‘operationalised’?
2) What are the dependent and independent variables for this study?
3) Name four confounding variables and suggest how these can be controlled.
4) What are the limits to generalising the findings of this study?
5) What type of error could the sampling method introduce and why?
6) What might be a better sampling method?
1)What would have to be ‘operationalised’?
Academic performance, you can do this by testing the students at the start and the study and then at the end to see if there has been a percentage increase in their results.
2) What are the dependent and independent variables for this study?
Dependent variable- academic performance
Independent variable- those who get the food supplement and those who dont.
3) cofounding variables
——The test itself- have the students all take the same test at the same time. It would be unfair if some were tested in maths and some English depending on their individual strengths.
——Same time of test means that all students have the same amount of time to prepare for the test.
—–How often the students take the supplement and how much. To control it, you would tell the student they need to take 3 cups of the supplement at certain times of the day for example. This is to prevent some students have more than others
——The diet of the students, some students may eat more healthy than others, setting a set diet for every student would control this but would be difficult to enforce
4) small sample size, picking the students who came first may be more eager to learning.
5) The students who attend school first may be more eager towards learning, this is systemic sampling error.
6) what might be better sampling method? Picking random students names from the schools database that met the criteria for the study.
