1
Q
What is a laboratory experiment?
A
The IV is manipulated by the researcher and the experiment is carried out in a laboratory or other contrived setting away from the participants’ normal environment.
2
Q
What is a field experiment?
A
The IV is manipulated by the researcher and carried out using participants in their normal surroundings.
3
Q
What is a quasi experiment?
A
The IV is naturally occurring (e.g. weather), not manipulated by the researcher.
4
Q
What are advantages of laboratory experiments?
A
- Easily repeatable
- Highly controlled (increased validity)
5
Q
What are disadvantages of laboratory experiments?
A
- Expensive
- Lacks ecological validity
6
Q
What are advantages of field experiments?
A
- Ecologically valid
- Behaviour is more likely to reflect their real life actions
7
Q
What are disadvantages of field experiments?
A
- Difficult to repeat
- More extraneous variables
- May have ethical issues
8
Q
What are advantages of quasi experiments?
A
- Ecologically valid
- Can study factors that would otherwise be unethical e.g. split brain patients.
9
Q
What are disadvantages of quasi experiments?
A
- Time consuming
- Difficult to replicate due to natural IV
- Lack of control - confounding variables e.g. lifestyle
10
Q
What is a repeated measures design?
A
It involves using the same people in each condition
11
Q
What is an independent measures design?
A
It involves using different people in each condition.
12
Q
What is a matched participants design?
A
It involves using different people in each condition but an attempt is made to make the participants as similar as possible on certain key characteristics. This is done by testing the individuals on the key characteristics, pairing them based on similar scores, and then placing one member of each pair into each group.
13
Q
What are advantages of repeated measures design?
A
- Easily comparable to each condition
- Reduced participant variables (individual characteristics)
- Half number of participants are needed as they are in both conditions
14
Q
What are disadvantages of repeated measures design?
A
- Might catch onto the experiment (demand characteristics)
- Order effects –> Might have to create test materials of identical difficulty which is hard and time consuming
15
Q
What are advantages of independent measures design?
A
- No order effects
- Possible to use the same task in each condition –> controlling extraneous variables
16
Q
What are disadvantages of independent measures design?
A
- Results affected by participant variables
- Twice as many participants are needed than in repeated measures
17
Q
What are advantages of matched participants design?
A
Easy to put participants into groups or conditions
18
Q
What are disadvantages of matched participants design?
A
- If one person drops out, you can’t match in pairs
- Time consuming
- Participants need to be pre-tested –> complicated
19
Q
What are participant variables?
A
Characteristics of the individual participant that may influence the results.
20
Q
What are situational variables?
A
Any feature of the research situation which may influence a participant’s behaviour and therefore the result
21
Q
What are examples of participant variables?
A
Age, intelligence, motivation, skill, experience, gender
22
Q
How can participant variables be controlled?
A
- Either have the same people in each condition (a repeated measures design) or extremely similar people in each condition (a matched participants design)
- If using an independent groups design, make a point of allocating participants to conditions on a random basis so that participant variables are more likely to be evenly distributed between conditions.
23
Q
What are examples of situational variables?
A
Order effects. If doing the same activity twice, participants may do better the second time because of practice or worse because of boredom.
24
Q
How can situational variables be controlled?
A
- Having different people in each condition will avoid order effects (independent measures or matched participants)
- If a repeated measures is used, this should be counter-balanced. This where both groups swap conditions on the second time.
25
What is researcher effect/bias?
When the researcher either influences the behaviour of the participants; or their prior expectations impact on how they analyse the results of a study or who they select as participants.
26
How can environmental factors be controlled?
Impose controls on the experiment to ensure that there are as few differences as possible between the two conditions. (same room, same temperature etc.)
27
What are demand characteristics?
Cues in an experiment that communicate to participants what is expected of them and which may unconsciously affect the behaviour of participants.
28
How to control demand characteristics?
Do not tell participants the aim of the study (single blind procedure)
29
What is single blind research?
When the participants do not know the aim of the study.
30
What is double blind research?
When neither the participants nor the researchers know the aim of the study.
31
What is an advantage of double blind research?
Reduces researcher effects and bias --> Increases validity.
32
What are drawbacks of single blind research?
- Could give away aim of the study
- No informed consent
33
What are drawbacks of double blind research?
- Researcher may get confused on what they're recording
- Lack of accuracy
- Time/resource consuming
34
What does an alternative hypothesis predict?
Predicts that the IV will affect the DV.
35
What does a null hypothesis predict?
Predicts that the IV will not have an effect on the DV.
36
What does a two-tailed hypothesis predict?
Predicts that there will be a difference but don't specify a direction.
37
What does a one-tailed hypothesis predict?
Predicts there will be a difference as well as which direction it will go in.
38
What is operationalisation?
The process of making variables physically measurable or testable.
39
What is a target population?
The group of people the researcher is interested in studying
40
What is a sampling method?
The different ways in which researchers can obtain a sample of people from within the target population to take part in their study
41
What is a sample?
The actual group of participants used in research
42
What is a self-selecting sampling method?
When people volunteer to take part in the study.
43
What is opportunity sampling?
A sample of participants produced by selecting those who are most readily available at a given time and place selected by the researcher.
44
What is random sampling?
A technique in which each member of the target population has an equal chance of being selected.
45
What is snowball sampling?
When participants are asked to contact their friends and family to ask them to also take part in the research.
46
What are strengths of self-selecting sampling?
- People will be more enthusiastic to do the study
- Generally, consent is given
- No researcher bias
47
What are weaknesses of self-selecting sampling?
- Smaller sample so results are less representative
- Demand characteristics --> if people are more willing to do the study, they might change behaviour
- More resource and time consuming
- Sample bias if only advertising in one place
48
What are strengths of opportunity sampling?
- Easy to gather participants
- Less time and resource consuming
49
What are weaknesses of opportunity sampling?
- Researcher bias
- Sample bias - might only be from one place
- Participants may feel obligated to participate
50
What are strengths of random sampling?
- Reduces researcher bias
- Greater chance of population validity
51
What are weaknesses of random sampling?
- Time and resource consuming
- Difficult to get names of target population
- Reduce population validity if not everyone shows up
52
What are strengths of snowball sampling?
- Time efficient
- Low effort for researcher
53
What are weaknesses of snowball sampling?
- Lacks population validity (similar attitudes)
- Increases researcher bias
54
What are the four ethical principles?
Respect, competence, responsibility, integrity
55
What are the ethical considerations under respect?
- Informed consent
- Right to withdraw
- Confidentiality
56
What is the ethical consideration under competence?
Researchers should carry out studies within their own capabilities
57
What are the ethical considerations under responsibility?
- Protection from harm
- Debrief
58
What is the ethical consideration under integrity?
Deception
59
What is primary data?
Data that we collect directly
60
What is secondary data?
Data which already existed somewhere else.
61
What are strengths of quantitative data?
- Easy to analyse
- Easy to represent
- Easy to compare
- Can check reliability of results
62
What are weaknesses of quantitative data?
- Lack detail about individuals e.g. behaviour
63
What are strengths of qualitative data?
- Has detail like participants' behaviour
- Unaccounted behaviours can be recorded
64
What are weaknesses of qualitative data?
- Hard to analyse
- Hard to represent
- Harder to compare
- More subjective so open to researcher bias
65
How is the mean calculated?
Add up all values and divide by how many there is
66
What are the advantages of the mean?
- All data is included
- Most representative data
67
What are the advantages of the mean?
- All data is included
- Most representative data
68
What is a disadvantage of the mean?
Anomalies (outliers) will skew the mean away from the middle which will not represent most scores.
69
How is the median calculated?
Order data list and find middle value.
70
What is an advantage of the median?
Result will not be affected by anomalies --> results won't be skewed
71
What is a disadvantage of the median?
Time consuming to calculate a large data set.
72
How is the mode calculated?
It's the most frequent value in the data set
73
What are advantages of the mode?
- Easy to calculate
- Can be used for non numerical data
74
What is a disadvantage of the mode?
Impossible to calculate if all the data is different or there may be more than one mode
75
How to calculate the range?
Highest value - lowest value
76
What is an advantage of the range?
Quick + easy to calculate how spread out the scores are
77
What are disadvantages of the range?
- Doesn't tell us if the spread of scores is evenly distributed
- Can be asked by a particularly high or low score
78
How is variance calculated?
- Calculate mean
- Subtract each participant's score from the mean (difference)
- Square each difference
- Add differences and divide by participants-1
79
What are advantages of variance?
- Takes into account all values (not just highest and lowest)
- Less likely to be affected by outliers
80
What is a disadvantage of variance?
Only takes into account the squared values, not the original data
81
How to calculate standard deviation?
Square root the variance
82
What are advantages of standard deviation?
- Takes into account all the data
- Expressed in the same unit as the original data (not squared)
83
What is a disadvantage of standard deviation?
Time-consuming and more difficult to calculate
Psychology OCR
flashcards
Decks in class (26)
# Cards
-
Research Methods Introduction21
-
Milgram's study - Social49
-
Piliavin's study - Social60
-
The Behaviourist Perspective13
-
Bandura - Developmental51
-
Methodological Issues11
-
Ethics and Debates13
-
Experiments83
-
Kohlberg - Developmental28
-
Moray - Cognitive50
-
Loftus and Palmer - Cognitive37
-
Self-report30
-
Psychodynamic perspective7
-
Freud's study - Individual Differences37
-
Gould's review - Individual Differences13
-
Correlation0
-
Individual vs Situational0
-
Nature vs Nurture0
-
Usefulness of research0
-
Reductionism vs Holism0
-
Socially sensitive research0
-
Free will vs Determinism0
-
Ethical Considerations0
-
Psychology as a science0
-
Sperry's study - Biological12
-
Blakemore and Cooper's study - Biological0
