Research methods year 1 Flashcards
What is the aim?
a general statement of what the researcher intends to investigate
What is a hypothesis?
A testable prediction about the variables in a study. It should always contain the IV and the DV
What is a directional hypothesis?
A one-tailed hypothesis that states the direction of the difference or relationship
What is a non-directional hypothesis?
A two-tailed hypothesis that does not predict the direction of the difference or relationship
What is operationalisation
Clearly defining variables in terms of how they can be measured
What is the independent variable?
The variable that the researcher manipulates and is assumed to have a direct effect on the DV
What is the dependent variable?
The variable that the researcher measures. It is the variable that is affected by the manipulation of the IV
What is an extraneous variable?
Any variable, other than the IV, that may affect the DV if it is not controlled
What are the four types of extraneous variables
Participant variables, situational variables, investigator effects and demand characteristics
What are situational variables?
factors in the environment that can unintentionally affect the results of a study
Give examples of situational variables (7)
heat, noise, distractions, time of day, time of year, place in history, order effects
What are participant variables?
Characteristics of individual participants that might influence the outcome of a study
Give examples of participant variables (10)
Age
Gender
Mood
Ethnicity
Expectations
Intelligence
Personality
Memory
Previous experience
Participant reactivity
Why does research need to be highly controlled
To avoid the effects of extraneous variables
What are confounding variables?
Variables that vary systematically with the IV. Therefore we can’t tell if any change in the DV is due to the IV or the confounding variable
What are demand characteristics?
Any cue from the researcher or from the research situation that may be interpreted by participants as revealing the purpose of the investigation, and change participants’ behaviour
What is the please-U effect and the screw-U effect?
When participants act in a way that they think is expected and over-perform to please the experimenter
When participants deliberately under-perform to sabotage the results of the study
What are investigator effects?
Any effect of the investigator’s behaviour (conscious or unconscious) on the research outcome (the DV)
What is randomisation?
The use of chance methods to control for the effects of bias when designing materials and deciding the order of experimental conditions
controlling situational variables - standardisation
Using exactly the same formalised procedures for all participants in a research study
What are standardised instructions?
A set of instructions that are the same for all participants so as to avoid investigator effects caused by different instructions
what is an experiment?
A controlled situation in which the researcher manipulates one variable to discover its effect on another variable, while the other variables are held constant
What is the independent groups design?
Participants are allocated to different groups where each group represents one experimental condition
Advantages of independent groups design (2)
• No order effects - participants are only tested once so can’t practise or become bored/tired. Controls an important CV
• Will not guess aim - participants are only tested once so they are unlikely to guess the research aims. Behaviour may be more ‘natural’ (higher realism)