Research Methods (Unit 1)

Question 1

What is correlation?

Answer 1

Statistical technique - measures strength of relationship between variables.

Question 2

What is an interview?

Answer 2

Used to gain in-depth information and individual views.

Question 3

What is a naturalistic observation?

Answer 3

Watching behaviour, as it occurs spontaneously, in a natural setting

Question 4

What is a questionnaire survey?

Answer 4

A snapshot of large number of people’s attitudes, opinions or behaviour

Question 5

What is an aim?

Answer 5

The aim of an investigation is its general purpose

Question 6

What is a hypothesis?

Answer 6

The hypothesis is a precise, testable statement or prediction about the expected outcome of an investigation.

Question 7

What is a null hypothesis?

Answer 7

A ‘null hypothesis’ (Ho) prediction is one that states results are due to chance and are not significant in terms of supporting the idea being investigated.

Question 8

What is a directional hypothesis? (one tailed)

Answer 8

A directional hypothesis is more specific, in that the experimenter predicts, not only that a specific relationship will exist, but, further, the direction of that relationship

Question 9

What is a non-directional hypothesis? (two tailed)

Answer 9

A two-tailed non-directional hypothesis predicts that the independent variable will have an effect on the dependent variable, but the direction of the effect is not specified

Question 10

What is a pilot study?

Answer 10

A pilot study is a test run on a few participants this enables you to check for design faults before carrying out an investigation on a larger scale, this is a routine procedure especially used when carrying out questionnaire.

Question 11

What is random sampling?

Answer 11

Everyone in the entire target population has an equal chance of being selected.

Question 12

What is opportunity sampling?

Answer 12

Uses people from target population available at the time

Question 13

What is stratified sampling?

Answer 13

Divides target population into groups, people in sample from each group in same proportions as population. So you would have a higher number of people between the ages of 20-30 than 70-80

Question 14

What are demand characteristics?

Answer 14

Participants might read things into the situation and start changing their behaviour they respond to the perceived demands of the study

Question 15

What is a single blind design?

Answer 15

Participants do not know which condition (experimental or control) they are in. For example, the use of placebos in trials of drug treatments.

Question 16

What is a double blind design?

Answer 16

Neither the participants nor the experimenter know which condition people are being treated to. For example, a research assistant giving out drugs and measuring their effects does not know who has the placebo and who has the drug.

Question 17

What is an independent variable (IV)?

Answer 17

Variable the experimenter manipulates - assumed to have a direct effect on the dependent variable.

Question 18

What is a dependent variable (DV)?

Answer 18

Variable the experimenter measures, after making changes to the IV which are assumed to affect the DV.

Question 19

What is an extraneous variables (Ex Vs)?

Answer 19

Other variables, apart from the IV, that might affect the DV. They might be important enough to provide alternative explanations for the effects, for example, confounding variables.

Question 20

What is a laboratory experiment?

Answer 20

Artificial environment with tight controls over variables.

Question 21

What is a field experiment?

Answer 21

Natural environment with independent variable manipulated by researchers.

Question 22

What is a natural experiment?

Answer 22

Natural changes in independent variable are used - it is not manipulated.

Question 23

What is an independent group?

Answer 23

Testing separate groups of people, each group is tested in a different condition

Question 24

What are repeated measures?

Answer 24

Testing the same group of people in different conditions, the same people are used repeatedly

Question 25

What are matched pairs?

Answer 25

Testing separate groups of people - each member of one group is same age, sex, or social background as a member of the other group

Question 26

What is counterbalancing?

Answer 26

Alternating the order in which participants perform in different conditions of an experiment. For example, group 1 does ‘A’ then ‘B’, group 2 does ‘B’ then ‘A’ this is to eliminate order effects.

Question 27

What are closed questions?

Answer 27

(fixed choice of answers), to generate data for easy analysis

Question 28

What are open questions?

Answer 28

(space to write any answer) for more detailed individual answers

Question 29

What are unstructured interviews?

Answer 29

apparently informal chats, or they can be formal

Question 30

What are structured interviews?

Answer 30

pre-determined questions. For example, clinical tests used in psychiatry

Question 31

What is quantitative research?

Answer 31

Gathers data in numerical form and is concerned with making ‘scientific’ measurements. Quantitative data analysis uses a barrage of inferential statistical tests

Question 32

What is qualitative research?

Answer 32

Gathers information that is not in numerical form. For example, diary accounts, open-ended questionnaires, unstructured interviews and unstructured observations

Question 33

What is a median?

Answer 33

All values are arranged in order, the middle value is the median. Used with interval or ordinal level data, the median is not affected much by extreme values

Question 34

What is mode?

Answer 34

The most frequent value or score in a set of data. Used with nominal data. Does not give any information about other values

Question 35

What is range?

Answer 35

Simple measure of dispersion- shows the total spread of data. Difference between highest and lowest scores in a set of data: top value minus bottom value plus 1. Affected by atypical, extreme values

Question 36

What is Standard Deviation?

Answer 36

Measure of dispersion- shows degree of clustering of values around the mean. Calculating standard deviation (S): Square root of sum of all squared deviations from the mean, divided by N (or sometimes N-1).