Validity

Question 1

subjectivity

Answer 1

this a personal viewpoint which may be biased by one’s feelings, beliefs or experiences and may differ between researchers. Since this is not consistent, it may reduce the validity of the study.

Question 1

objectivity

Answer 1

an unbiased viewpoint that is not affected by an individual’s feelings, beliefs or experiences, so should be consistent between different researchers. This would increase the validity of the study.

Question 2

inter-observer reliability

Answer 2

the consistency between two researchers watching the same event , i.e whether they will produce the same records

Question 3

naturalistic observation

Answer 3

a study conducted by watching the participants behaviour in their natural environment without interference from the researcher’s in either the social or physical environment.

Question 4

subjectivity

Answer 4

a personal viewpoint which may be biased by one’s feelings , beliefs or experiences.

Question 5

volunteer (self-selecting sampling)

Answer 5

participants are invited to participate , through advertisements or via email

Question 6

Mundane realism

Answer 6

the extent to which a task represents the real-world situation.

Question 7

Generalizability

Answer 7

how widely the findings of a study apply to other settings and populations.

Question 8

Demand characteristics

Answer 8

features of an experiment that give away the aims. This could cause participants to change their behaviour and hence reduce the validity of the study.

Question 9

Internal validity

Answer 9

how well an experiment controls confounding variables. This allows the researcher to be more confident about the causal relationship.

Question 10

Validity

Answer 10

is the extent to which the researcher is testing what they claim to be testing.