Research methods test prep Flashcards
mean would be the most appropriate measure of central tendency to summarise the data in this table.
Alternatively (here’s one for the Year 2 students to think about), the mean is an appropriate measure of central tendency because the data collected in the follow-up study was ratio data (the time taken in seconds to complete the puzzle) and the mean can only be used with interval or ratio data.
The psychologist used counterbalancing in the follow-up study. Discuss the purpose of counterbalancing
The purpose of counterbalancing is to ensure both conditions (Task A and B) are tested first and second in equal amounts. The purpose of this is to avoid order effects which could include practice effects, where participants perform better on their second trial, or fatigue/boredom effects, where participants perform worse on their second trial. By ensuring that half of the participants complete Task A first followed by B and the other half complete Task B first followed by A, then any order effects are balanced.
Explain how content analysis can be conducted
The other researcher would read through the data, highlighting important points of reference and annotate the margins with comments. Using these comments, the researcher would categorise the data, e.g. evidence of social interaction. This process will be repeated for each interview transcript.
Once completed, the categories which emerged through the process of analysing the content are reviewed. With the well-defined (operationalised) categories, the researcher then returns to the original interview data and tallies the occurrence of each ‘behaviour’ accordingly. The qualitative data has now undergone analysis to produce quantitative data which can undergo further analysis such as statistical testing.
Explain how reliability of content analysis can be assessed
Inter-rater reliability refers to the extent to which two or more researchers are rating or recording behaviour in a consistent way. This is a particularly useful way of ensuring reliability in situations where there is a risk of subjectivity, such as content analysis, to make sure that the categories are being used in the correct manner.
Another independent psychologist would observe the same data set, and then their categories and tallies would be correlated to see whether they are suitably similar. If reliability is found to be poor, the categories used in the first content analysis will need to be refined and then re-categorised in order to achieve consistency.
The psychologist found that the difference in the number of nightmares reported in the two conditions was significant at p<0.05. Explain what is meant by ‘significant at p<0.05’ in the context of this experiment. [2 marks]
Significant at p<0.05 means that there is a 5% chance that findings of this experiment are the result of chance and a 95% confidence level that any difference seen in the results is because of the manipulation of the independent variable. In this case, the researchers can be 95% confident that the number of nightmares reported (DV) was affected by the type of film watched (horror or romantic comedy), before going to bed.
The psychologist was concerned about the validity of the experiment. Suggest one possible modification to the design of the experiment and explain how this might improve validity. [3 marks]
In experimental research, a control group is often used in order to improve validity. This allows psychologists to see whether the independent variable influences the dependent variable. For example, the researchers could modify their research by having an experimental group who watch the horror and romantic comedy movies and report the number of nightmares in the morning and a control group who do not watch any movies at all before bed but still report the incidence of their nightmares over the same two-week period. In this case, using a control group would allow a comparison to see whether the films were truly causing a higher incidence of nightmares, thus giving greater confidence in the validity of the research.
