RESEARCH METHODS- Pilot study, validity, referencing Flashcards
Pilot study
- Small scale study done before main study
- Purpose is to check/ test procedural details
Why do we run pilot studies?
- Don’t want to waste time during real experiment
- Don’t want to waste money on resources
- An opportunity to change things so findings are more sufficient
Things to check for in a pilot study (5)
- Do participants understand instructions
- Does equipment work
- Check ethics- are participants upset in any way?
- Timing- try different amount of time
- Ask a few participants about their experience of taking part
Test- retest reliability
- Testing experiments/observations etc over time
- Results are reliable over time or only over 1 period of time- bound to time period- check not one off results
Inter- rater reliability
- Inter-rater reliability is how much two or more people AGREE when they judge or score the same thing.
- It shows whether different raters give similar results when looking at the same data.
- High inter-rater reliability means the results are consistent, while low reliability means the scores are very different.
How to improve reliability?
Re- write behaviour categories- make more specific
Re- train observers
Reporting psychological investigations
- Standardised structure- way we write up psychology experiments
Procedure of reporting psychological explanations
- ABSTRACT- short summary of whole study
PURPOSE: - Other researchers read it to see if your study is relevant to their research
- INTRODUCTION- review of previous research done around topic
PURPOSE: - Explains how we’ve got to aims and hypothesis of present research
- METHOD- allows replication of study
PURPOSE: - Provide a clear and detailed description of how the study was conducted
- RESULTS- Include descriptive statistics and inferential statistics- see whether we accept or reject the hypothesis
PURPOSE: - Present findings so readers can see the outcomes easily
- DISCUSSION- Draw conclusions from findings, relate it to previous research, applications of research
Referencing
- Use Harvard referencing
- Credit previous researchers
- No plagiarism
Referencing:
1. Journal
2. Book
3. Web
- author, date, title, page numbers
- author, date, title of book, place of publication, publisher
- Web- source, data, title, weblink, date accessed
Extraneous variables
Variables we try to control
Confounding variables
Changes with IV/ Vary with IV
Face validity
- How much a test or measurement appears to measure what it’s supposed to, just by looking at it.
- It’s about whether it seems relevant at first glance.
Concurrent validity
- When you do a second measure to see if you get the same results
Ecological validity
- How well the results of a study apply to real-life settings outside the research environment.
Temporal validity
- How well the results of a study remain true over time and apply to different time periods.
How do we do an assessment of validity?
We assess validity by comparing the test or study results with established measures or evaluating how well it reflects the concept it aims to measure.
How do we improve validity?
We improve validity by using well-designed procedures, real-life scenarios, and validated measurement tools that accurately capture the intended variables.
Bar chart
- Discontinuous data
- Bars NOT touching
Histogram
- Continuous data
- Bars ARE touching
