Section 2: RESEARCH DESIGN Flashcards
Random assignment
Every participant having an equal chance of being in either the experimental group or the control group…
- Often used in experimental methods when directly manipulating the IV
Experiment
Involves the manipulation of an independent variable, the measurement of a dependent variable, and the exposure of various participants to one or more of the conditions being studied
Cause and effect relationship
A relationship in which one event causes another to happen.
- One of the strengths of experiments: It allows manipulation of the IV in order to measure the DV - to give a true measure of cause-effect relationship
Confounding variables
In a controlled experiments, confounding variables are factors that cause differences between the experimental group and the control group, other than the chosen IV
- Ex: When exploring is alcohol (IV) affects driving ability, the researchers found a CV that not all participants had the same driving ability which caused differences in the DV.
Third variable problem
A type of confounding in which a third variable leads to a mistaken causal relationship between two others. For instance, cities with a greater number of churches have a higher crime rate.
Random allocation
The division of the sample into groups in away that every individual has an equal chance of being allocated
-E.g. Assigning participants to conditions using a random wheel generating AI tool
- A strength of experiments
Demand characteristics
Clues participants pick up on that help them discover the purpose of the study and suggests to them how researchers would like then to respond/behave.
- A weakness of experiments
Correlations
It is the relationship between two co-variables
Internal validity
Refers to whether the design and conduct of a study are able to support the proposal that cause and effect relationship exists between the IV and DV.
- Ensures that no other variable expect the IV caused the observed effect on the DV.
- The marker that you are truly testing what you were trying to test
External validity
The extent to which the result from a study apply to all other contexts beyond the original study.
E.g. If it is a laboratory experiment, can the result be found in normal, everyday observations?
- A weakness of experiments
Survey
When researchers use questionnaires or interviews to ask a large number of people questions about their thoughts, behavior and/or attitudes. It is a self-report technique. Often employ the use of a Likert Scale.
Likert Scale
A progressive scale, often 1-5 or represented by images such as unhappy to happy faces
Social desirability bias
- the tendency to underreport socially undesirable attitudes and behaviors and to over report more desirable attributes.
- Accuracy of surveys is an issue as participants often lie due to…
Interviews
Face-to-face interaction with another individual and results in collection of data. There are 3 main types of interview: Structured / Unstructured / Semi structured
Meta – Analysis
One particular form of research method that uses secondary data is meta-analysis.
- Refers to a process where the data from a large number of studies, which have involved the same research questions and methods of research are combined.
- The researcher may simply discuss the findings or conclusions – this is a qualitative analysis. Additionally, they might use a quantitative approach and perform a statistical analysis of the combined data from all the studies they are looking at. - May involve calculating the effect size – basically the DV of a meta-analysis – which allows the researcher to assess overall trends.
Case Studies
This is an in-depth examination of a specific group, but more usually one individual, that typically includes interviews, observations and test scores. The intense analysis is especially useful for understanding complex or rare phenomena.
Naturalistic Observations
These observations take place in a setting or context where the target behaviour would usually occur. All aspects of the environment are free to vary. Nothing is manipulated; no behaviour is interfered with e.g. watching animals in their ‘normal’ environment; listening to children talking freely in their classroom.
