Sample sources Flashcards
1
Q
What percentage of experiments use students as subjects?
A
75-90%
2
Q
How can WEIRD samples threaten studies?
A
pose threat to external validity through lack of generalizability of results
2
Q
How can student samples be useful to researchers?
A
- students are similar to one another in a variety of ways
- students differ from general public in significant ways
- this can help researchers in internal validity by controlling for confounds
- decreases variability
2
Q
What are advantages of Mturk?
A
- affordability
- ease of use
- population research
2
Q
What are 2 threats to validity when using student samples?
A
- they may be motivated to please the researchers > demand characteristics
- may be more likely to pick up on study’s underlying hypothesis and goals
3
Q
What does W.E.I.R.D. stand for?
A
Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic
3
Q
What is Mturk?
A
online crowdsourcing platform where humans are paid to do tasks computers can’t
3
Q
What are common mistakes in sampling?
A
- using student samples without considering how they might be different from the population of interest
- not providing a rationale for the use of subjects of any type
- generalising beyond subjects in the study
3
Q
What are Mturk research benefits?
A
- large and diverse participant pool
- ease of access and speed of data collection
- reasonable cost
- flexibility regarding research design choice
4
Q
What were early critics of Mturk’s representativeness?
A
that they skewed towards younger, more educated, female users
5
Q
What are some current challenges of Mturk research?
A
- inattention (15% failed attention checks)
- self misrepresentation
- self selection bias
- high attrition
- social desirability bias
