Terms Flashcards
Extraneous variables
Variables that may effect the DV, other than the IV.
Deception
Participants are not told the true aim of the study.
Participant observation
Observers take part in the activity with participants.
Field experiments
Takes place in a natural environment.
+ High ecological validity.
- Hard to control external variables.
Snowball sampling
Participants recruit others.
+ Access difficult to locate groups.
- Not a good cross-section of the population.
Confidentiality
Concerns the communication of personal information and that it’s protected.
Independent groups design
Different participants in each condition.
+ Can control extraneous variables.
- Difficult to control participant variables.
- Need more participants to get enough data.
Deal with issues: randomly allocate to conditions.
Covert observation
Participants don’t know they are being observed.
Mean
Add up, divide by number of data.
+ Sensitive- uses all data.
- Easily distorted by anomalous data.
Median
Middle number.
+ Not easily distorted.
- Not as sensitive.
Mode
Most frequent.
+ Easy to find.
- Useless.
- Not sensitive.
Self-selected sampling
Advert - volunteers
+ Variety - representative, less bias.
- Volunteer bias.
Opportunity sampling
Easy to access.
+ Quick and easy.
- May not be representative.
Time sampling
Count number of behaviour that occurs in time frame.
Matched pairs design
Participants matched in ways that matter to the study.
+ External variables controlled.
- Difficult to match.
- Time consuming.
Privacy
Participants right to control the flow of information about themselves.
Operationalisation
Ensure variables are in a form that is testable and measurable.
Non-participant observation
Observer is separate from participants.
Overt observation
Participants know they are being observed.
Observer bias
Researchers expectations effect what they see and hear.
Stratified (quota) sampling
Randomly selected from sub-groups of target population.
+ Representative.
- Difficult to identify sub-groups.
- Time consuming.