Week 2 Flashcards
Is a tentative belief about the way two or more variables interact/ impact each other
It predicts the findings that should be observed if the theory is correct.
Hypothesis
Is a systematic way of organising and explaining observation; different schools of thought promoting different theories.
Theory
That is the same for all participants except where variations is introduced to test a hypothesis.
It exposes the participants in a study to as similar procedures as possible.
Standardised procedure
Sample that is representative of the population
Generalisability
Measures that are reliable that produce consistent results.
Objective measurement
Any phenomenon that can differ or vary from one situation to another or from one person to another.
….. is anything that can vary, be changed, such as memory attention, time taken to perform a task.
Variable
Has a continuum of possible values and varies across this range( e.g., reaction time in seconds ranging from 0.05 to 5 secs)
Continuous Variable
Can take on fixed values and only those fixed values (e.g., make of car, biological gender)
A variable with a number of possible values, yet these are fixed and limited into set groups or classes. Eg. Blood group.
Categorical Variable
Is the entire group of people that a researcher is interested in
Population
Smaller subsets of the population and make interferences back to the entire populated on the…
Samples
To be valid the sampling must be…
Representative
In-depth observation of a small number of cases.
Describes psychological processes as they occur in individual cases.
Allows study of complex phenomena not easily reproduced experimentally.
Descriptive Designs
Manipulation of variables to assess cause and effect.
Replicability: a study can be repeated to see if the same findings emerge.
Maximises control over relevant variables.
Experimental designs
Examines the extent to which two or more variables are related and can be used to predict one an other.
Reveals relationships among variables as they exist outside the laboratory.
Correlational Designs
In-depth observation of a phenomen as it occurs in the wild
Reveals the phenomena as they exist outside the laboratory.
Naturalistic Observation