RM - More problems with experiments

Question 1

What are demand characteristics?

Answer 1

A cue that makes participants unconsciously aware of the aims of a study or helps participants work out what the researcher expects to find.

Question 2

What is the investigator effect?

Answer 2

Anything that an investigator does that affects a participant’s performance in a study other than what was intended, directly (through interaction with the participant) or indirectly (through bias in the study design).

Question 3

What happens in a single blind design?

Answer 3

The participant is not aware of the research aims and/or of which condition of the experiment they are receiving. This prevents the participant from seeking cues about the aims and reacting to them.

Question 4

What happens in a double blind design?

Answer 4

Both the participant and the person conducting the experiment are ‘blind’ to the aims and/or hypotheses. Therefore the person conducting the investigation is less likely to produce cues about about what they expect.

Question 5

What is experimental realism?

Answer 5

If the researcher makes an experimental task sufficiently engaging the participant pays attention to the task and not the fact that they are being observed.

Question 6

What is a participant variable?

Answer 6

Any characteristics of individual participants. (An extraneous variable).

Question 7

How do you deal with demand characteristics and investigator effects?

Answer 7

By using:

• A single blind design
• A double blind design
• Experimental realism

Question 8

What are situational variables?

Answer 8

Those features of a research situation that may influence participants’ behaviour and thus act as EVs of confounding variables. An example of a situational variable is order effects. They are only confounding if they vary systematically with the IV.