Strengths and weaknesses of experimental design

Question 1

Strengths of independent groups

Answer 1

-NO ORDER EFFECTS as participants only experience one condition which means they are less likely to guess the aims of the study

Question 2

weaknesses of independent groups

Answer 2

• participant variables such as individual differences (use random allocation to deal with it)
• less economical than repeated measures as only one result is gained
• time consuming

Question 3

strengths of repeated measures

Answer 3

• no individual differences

- fewer participants are needed

Question 4

weaknesses of repeated measures

Answer 4

• order effects can act as a confounding variable

- performance on the second condition may be better or worse depending on BPF

Question 5

strength of matched pairs

Answer 5

• reduces participant variables as researcher has paired up participant with similar abilities and characteristics
• there’s only one condition which means demand characteristics are not a problem
• no need for counterbalancing as order effects are avoided

Question 6

weaknesses of matched pairs

Answer 6

• time-consuming and expensive
• participants are never matched exactly as there will always be important differences between them that can impact the DV

Question 7

order effects

Answer 7

• occurs in repeated measures

- practice, boredom, fatigue

Question 8

How would you reduce the impact of order effects

Answer 8

• COUNTERBALANCING
• participants do both conditions but in a different order
• it doesn’t get rid of order effects but it does reduce it
• YOU WOULD USE ABBA TECHNIQUE

Question 9

purpose of counterbalancing

Answer 9

minimise order effects, allows for order effects to be distributed evenly across both conditions which makes each condition of the independent variable occur as the first task and second task equally