⭐ • Research Methods: Types of Experiments, Validity, Reliability & Experimental Variables Flashcards
What is a Laboratory experiment?
An experiment that takes placed in a controlled & artificial environment, this commonly leads to artificial behaviours as a result aka Demand Characteristics
What are strengths to Laboratory Experiments?
- High levels of control over extraneous/ confounding variables
- Increased reliability as its replicable due to control over aspects of envrionment and standardisation
What are weaknesses to Laboratory Experiments?
- Demand characteristics
- Researcher bias
- Artificial behaviours that are not real, therefore low ecological validity
What is a Field experiment?
An experiment that takes placed in a natural & ecologically valid environment, this commonly leads to mundane/ normal behaviours
What are strengths to Field Experiments?
- Participants commonly are not fully aware of being studied, therefore no demand characteristics
- High ecological validity as envrionment is natural therefore so are behaviours
What are weaknesses to Field Experiments?
- Less control over extraneous/ confounding variables
- May be more time-consuming
- Ethical issues over covert observation, lack of informed consent
What is an Aim?
The intended purpose of an investigation
What is a Rationale?
The reason behind doing the study in the first place e.g. to test encoding in the long term memory
What is a natural experiment?
An experiment that is entirely observational; it monitors existing factors of the participants, nauturally occuring factors without any probing from experimentors
What is validity?
The assessment of if a test/ experiment is measuring what it claims to measure
What is internal validity?
**The degree in which the relationship/ thing you are testing is not influenced by other factors or variables **- having high internal validity means that the researcher has minimised all confounding and extraneous variables to ensure that the IV is certianly causing the change to the DV - that no other factors could cause the change
If ________ validity is high, ________ of key findings is ________
If internal validity is high, replication of key findings is likley
What is population validity?
When a sample size is smaller and more specific and therefore is not representative of a wider population so consequently cannot be generalised to the wider population
What is ecological validity?
When a study was conducted under artificial conditions (e.g. a lab) and therefore lacks mundane realisms and is not representative of real life situations or behaviours
Predictive validity?
The extent to whcich a test score is actually related to the behaviour you want measure e.g. the score on a memory test or an intelligence test should be positivley related to performance in A level exams
What are mundane realisms?
Things that are reflective of real life scenarios, environments and behaviours
What is a single blind technique?
This means that the participant was unaware of the true aim of the experiment (ethics - participant decieved) and therefore was unable to give their informed consent - but demand characteristics are entirely avoided due to them not knowing true aim
What is a double blind technique?
When neither participant, nor the researcher/ experimenter were aware of the true aim of the experiment (ethics - both deieved). This significantly decreases the chance of demand characteristics and experimentor effects/ bias
What are independent variables?
The variable that is changed or controlled by the experimenter to test its effects
What are dependent variables?
The variable being measured or observed; it changes in response to the independent variable
What are control variables?
Variables that are kept constant to ensure that the effect on the dependent variable is due only to the independent variable
What are extraneous variables?
A variable other than the independent variable that might potentially affect the dependent variable and thereby skew or confuse the results
What are confounding variables?
A special class of extraneous variable that changes systematically with the independent variable
Experimentors want to ________ as many ________ as possible in order to ________ the presence and effect of ________ or ________ variables on their results
Experimentors want to control as many variables as possible in order to minimize the presence and effect of extraneous or confounding variables on their results
