Evaluation Experimental Methods (Component 2)

Question 1

Independent Groups (Experimental Design)

Answer 1

Strengths:
*Less materials needed​
*Same test can be used for both groups as only doing one condition​
*No order effects​
*Different P’s in each condition ​
*Less chance of demand characteristics ​
*P’s less likely to guess aim of study

Weaknesses:
*More P’s needed​
*Diff P’s in each condition, need a larger sample ​
*Individual differences​
*Different P’s in each condition, so comparing results of each *condition not as accurate

Question 2

Repeated Measures (Experimental Design)

Answer 2

Strengths:
*Less P’s needed
*Controls for individual differences

Weaknesses:
*More materials
*Order effects
*More chance of Demand Characteristics

Question 3

Matched Pairs (Experimental Design)

Answer 3

Strengths:
*Less chance of individual
differences​
*P’s matched to reduce impact
of I.D.​
*No order effects​
*Different P’s in each condition ​
*Less chance of demand
characteristics ​
*P’s less likely to guess aim of
study (only do one condition)

Weaknesses:
*Matching is difficult​
Impossible to match all
participant variables, even
twins aren’t perfect match​
*More P’s needed​
*Diff P’s in each condition, need
a larger sample ​
*Time consuming​
*Lengthy process to match P’s
before the experiment

Question 4

In the Lab (Location of research)

Answer 4

Strength:
*Easy to control – limit the impact of EV’s - High control means that cause and effect can be determined, increasing internal validity
*Access to specialist equipment
*Easy to replicate due to standardised procedure, increasing reliability

Weakness:
*Artificial behaviour – P’s more likely to change their behaviour (Demand characteristics)
*Low ecological validity – artificial environment

Question 5

In the Field (Location of research)

Answer 5

Strength:
*Access to study a wide range of behaviours due to availability of environments
*Carried out in everyday environment, likely to be reflective of everyday behaviour therefore high in ecological validity
*Less likely to be aware of research taking place – behaviour will be more natural

Weakness:
*More difficult to control – may impact validity of results - Hard to control extraneous variables, difficult to establish cause and effect
* May not be practical/feasible to study behaviour that needs specialist equipment
*Less chance of demand characteristics as P’s unaware they are being studied

Question 6

Online (Location of research)

Answer 6

Strength:
*Can access large, diverse samples
*Data collected electronically so can be easy to collect and analyse
*Less time consuming and cost-effective as no need to analyse/transcribe data as participants are typing their own comments, no printing costs

Weakness:
*Can be difficult to monitor ethical issues as P’s are not in the presence of the researcher
*Hard to know if P’s are being honest - Access to various online groups to study social processes, e.g. social influence
*Participants who take part in online experiments may be very similar, e.g. young, stressed, extroverted

Question 7

Quasi (Location of research)

Answer 7

Strength:
*Can be used when it is unethical/ not practical to manipulate the IV
*High external validity as study of ‘real problems’ as they happen

Weakness:
*Reduced opportunities for study as events may happen rarely (hard to generalise)
*Hard to establish cause and effect due to lack of control when IV naturally occurring

Question 8

Natural (Location of research)

Answer 8

Strength:
*Often carried out under controlled conditions so can compare differences between people

Weakness:
*Cannot randomly allocate people to conditions so likely to be confounding variables
*Due to being ‘like a lab’ environment could be contrived, therefore lowering ecological validity

Question 9

Opportunity (Sampling)

Answer 9

Strength:
Easier than other sampling techniques - Convenient - doesnt require much planning

Weakness:
Unrepresentative if sample is only from one
place so it is hard to generalise to the target
population.
Researcher bias - you choose who you ask unconsciously

Question 10

Self-selected (Sampling)

Answer 10

Strength:
Easier than some sampling methods as prospective​ participants approach you to take part .
Lack of researcher bias - people self select themselves/volunteer
Adverts can reach a wide variety of participants

Weakness:
Volunteers tend to be more interested and motivated to take part so perform differently to randomly selected participants - Not representative as they have similiar personalities
Only people who see the advert will be able to volunteer. The sample will not be truly representative of the target population because of small sample

Question 11

Random (Sampling)

Answer 11

Strength:
No researcher bias because All members have an equal chance of being selected because of random number generator

Weakness:
Can be time consuming
Randomly selected means they could end up not being representative

Question 12

Systematic (Sampling)

Answer 12

Strength:
Quicker than other sampling methods
No researcher bias because no researcher influence

Weakness:
People selected may say no
Sample may not be representative because its by chance

Question 13

Stratified (Sampling)

Answer 13

Strength:
Most representative of target population as all subgroups are represented so we can generalise the results
No researcher bias because participants are randomly selected (Random sampling)

Weakness:
Time consuming compared to other methods

Question 14

Quota (Sampling)

Answer 14

Strength:
Most representative of target population as all subgroups are represented so we can generalise the results​

Weakness:
Time consuming compared to other methods
Research bias as it uses opportunity sampling

Question 15

Snowball (Sampling)

Answer 15

Strength:
Enables the researcher to locate groups that may be difficult to access

Weakness:
Not representative because they may gather friends and they may have similiar personalities.