Research Methods

Question 1

What is a sample?

Answer 1

A small section of the target population

Question 2

What is Opportunity Sampling?

Answer 2

Obtaining participents who are easy to find at the time of research

Question 3

What is Self - Selecting sampling?

Answer 3

When you advertise your study and the participents choose to take part. They are voulenteers.

Question 4

What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Opportunity sampling?

Answer 4

Advantages:
* Quick and easy to carry out
* Large sample size can be obtained
Disadvantages:
* Sample is often unrepresentative of the target population as you can only access people available at a given time

Question 5

What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Self - Selecting Sampling?

Answer 5

Advantages:
* Participents have chosen to take part so they will be more willing to participate to the best of their ability
* There is no researcher bias as the researcher does not have a say in who takes part in the study
Disadvantages:
* Sample is often not representative of the target population as we have no say in the people who take part
* It is common to have a small sample size when asking for voulenteers

Question 6

What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of a Lab experiment

Answer 6

Advantages:
* High levels of control as there are no extraneous variables present
* Procedures are standardised so the study is easier to replicate
* Cause and Effect is easy to establish
Disadvantages:
* Tasks are artificial so they cannot be applied to real-world sitiuations
* Low ecological validity
* Participents an easily work out the aim of the study and therefore demonstrate demand characteristics

Question 7

What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of collecting Quantitative data

Answer 7

Advantages:
* Easy to analyse
* Easy to summarise
Disadvantages:
* Less detailed data
* Unexpected behaviours may not be counted

Question 8

What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of collecting Qualitative data:

Answer 8

Advantages:
* More detailed
* Unexpected behaviours can be captured
Disadvantages:
* Difficult to analyse
* Difficult to present in summarised form

Question 9

What are the 3 measures of dispersion?

Answer 9

Range
variance
standard deviation

Question 10

What are the three measures of central tendancy?

Answer 10

1. Mean
2. Median
3. Mode

Question 11

What are the advantages and disadvantages of a matched participants design

Answer 11

Advantages:
* Avoids order effects and demand characteristics as participents are only tested once
* High control over particpent variables as participents are matched on specific variables
Disadvantages:
* very time consuming
* Impossible to match partipents on all variables to eliminate all extraneous variables

Question 12

what is the difference between validity and reliablility

Answer 12

validity refers to the accuracy of the finding whereas reliablility relates to consistency

Question 13

What are the three types of validity

Answer 13

• Ecological validity: if the study is representative of a real life setting (field experiments/day-to-day tasks)
• Population validity: the diversity of sample (age/race/occupation/gender)
• Construct validity: if the experiment measures what it is supposed to be measuring, there is low construct validity if: there is a lack of controls/demand characteristics/participent variables/order effects/environmental variables

Question 14

what is a social desirablility bias

Answer 14

the tendancy to behave in a way which is socially acceptable

Question 15

what are the two types of reliability

Answer 15

• internal reliablilty: is the procedure standardised
• external reliablilty: is the sample large enough to establish a consistant effect

Question 16

What is ethnocentrism?

Answer 16

Whether the findings represent a range of different cultures
- if a peice of research is ethnocentric it is only carried out in one culture

Question 17

What ae the three ways to reduce ethnocentrism

Answer 17

• Carry out cross cultural research: this means data can be collected accross a range of different cultures
• carry out research in a heterogenous population: so that there is a higher chance of data being collected accross many cultures
• carry out biological research: focuses on biology which cannot be influecned by culture

Question 18

What are the 3 types of experiments

Answer 18

Lab: The iv is manipulated by the researcher and the experiment is carried out i a lab or other controlled setting away from the participants normal environment
Field: The IV is manipulated by the researcher but this time the experiment is carried out using participants in their normal surroundings
Quasi: The IV is naturally occuring

Question 19

What are the strengths and weaknesses of a Lab experiment

Answer 19

Strengths:
-standardised procedures - easily replicated
- high levels of control over extraneous variables
-high construct validity

Weaknesses
-demand characteristics
-tasks are unlike real life so they can’t be generalised
- low ecological validity

Question 20

What are the strengths and weaknesses of a Field experiment

Answer 20

Strengths:
-high ecological validity
-less demand charateristics
-high construct validity
- can be generalised

Weaknesses
- low levels of control over extraneous variables
- harder to replicate
- low internal reliability

Question 21

What are the strengths and weaknesses of a Quasi experiment

Answer 21

Strengths:
- Less researcher bias
- high ecological validity
-representative of real world scenarios

Weaknesses:
- participant variables could have a negative impact

Question 22

What are the strengths and weaknesses of Repeated measures

Answer 22

Strengths:
-less time consuming
-no participant variables

Weaknesses:
-order effects
-demand characteristics

Question 22

What are the three types of experimental design

Answer 22

Repeated measures: the same participants are used in each condition
Independant groups: Different participants are used in each condition
Matched pairs: participants ae matched on similar characteristics

Question 23

What are the strengths and weaknesses of Independant groups

Answer 23

Strengths:
- no order effects
-less demand characteristics

Weaknesses:
-participant variables
-time consuming (larger sample size)

Question 24

What are the strengths and weaknesses of Matched Pairs

Answer 24

Strengths: -participant variables are controlled - No demand characteristics -No order effects Weaknesses: - time consuming - hard to find everyone a pair - often small sample sizes

Question 25

What are order effects?

Answer 25

Occurs during a repeated measures design when participants take part in both conditions of the independent variable. This is means they will either perform better in condition 2 because they practiced the task in the first condition (practice effect) or they perform worse in condition 2 because they are tired from condition 1 (fatigue effect)

Question 26

What is counterbalancing

Answer 26

A way of reducing order effects by having half of the participants complete condition 1 first and the other half complete condition 2 first and then they swap

Question 27

what is the difference between a single and double blind trial

Answer 27

single blind - the participants do not know the aim of the experiment double blind - neither the researcher or the participants know the aim of the study.

Question 28

What is an alternative hypothesis

Answer 28

states there is a relationship between variables/there will be a significant difference

Question 29

What is a null hypothesis

Answer 29

states there is no relationship between variables/ there will be no significant difference

Question 30

what is the difference between a two tailed and a one tailed hypothesis

Answer 30

one tailed - states which direction the results will go in two tailed - states that there will be a difference but no specific direction is stated

Question 31

what are the strengths and weaknesses of random sampling

Answer 31

strengths: everyone has an equal chance of being selected there is no researcher bias weaknesses: sample may not be representative of the target population time consuming

Question 32

What are the strengths and weaknesses of snowball sampling

Answer 32

strengths: convenient for the researcher no researcher bias weaknesses: partcipant variables could infleuence data hard to obtain large samples

Question 33

how do you calculate variance and standard deviation

Answer 33

variance: find the mean find the difference between each value compared with the mean square all of those values add them together divide by the amount of data - 1 standard deviation: square root the variance value

Question 34

What are the strengths and weaknesses of open questions

Answer 34

Strenghs: - more detailed responses - specific to participent - useful for case studies - qualitiative data Weaknesses: - harder to analyse - more time consuming - could be a researcher bias when analysing responses

Question 35

What are the strenghs and weaknesses of closed questions

Answer 35

Strenghs: - easy to analyse - less time consuming -useful for large stamples Weaknesses - less detailed -more likely to be subjective - lower ecological validity

Question 36

Strengths and weaknesses of rating scales

Answer 36

Strengths: - they are good for establishing how someone feels about something - they are standarsied and easily replicated - gives quantitaitve data that can be comparted but still gives a small level of detail Weaknesses: - still does not tell you why someone feels that way - the scales can be interpreted slighly differently

Question 37

strengths and weaknesses of structured interviews

Answer 37

strengths: - standardised procedure- high construct validity - responses can be easily analysed and compared weaknesses: - limited responses - low exernal reliability - low ecological validity - less realistic

Question 38

strengths and weaknesses of semi - structured interviews

Answer 38

Strenghs: - origional questions and responses can be tested for reliability - elaboration/ clarification is allowed Weaknesses: - could be a researcher bias when asking questions - questions will vary between ppts

Question 39

strengths and weaknesses of unstructured interviews

Answer 39

Strenghts: - higher ecological vaidity as it is more representative of a real life conversation - lots of detail as many follow up questions can be asked as you like weaknesses - harder to compare/ analyse responsnes - low construct vailidy - might ask irrelevant questions hard to stay on task

Question 40

strengths and weaknesses of interviews

Answer 40

Strenghts: - you can elablorate and follow up on answers - you can read body language of ppts - more detailed responses weaknesses: - time consuming - ppts could feel uncomfortable/judged by researchers - social desireability bias - more difficult to analyse responses

Question 41

strengths and weaknesses of questionaires

Answer 41

strengths : - annonymous - no fear of judgement - less time consuming -easier to analyse - less impact from researcher - quantitative data easily collected - easy to collect a large amount of data - ppts can consider their responses weaknesses : - questions could be interpreted differently based on who ppts are - questions could be misunderstood - no chance to elaborate on answers - easier to lie - less detailed responses

Question 42

What are the three types of interviews

Answer 42

Structured: fixed predetermined questions and ways of replying Semi - structured: There is a set of prepared questions however the researcher can ask participents to elaborate or follow up on their responses Unstructured interviews: There are no predetermined questions only a topic for discussion

Question 43

What is a standard response set

Answer 43

The tendancy for participents to always give the same answer in response to different statements

Question 44

What are the types of scales in questionaires

Answer 44

Rating scale: a question that has a range of possible answers included with it and the participent has to choose the most appropriate answer for them Likert scale: A number statement for each of which participents indicate whether they strongly agree/agree/are undediced/disagree/stongly disagree Semantic differentials: An attitude object is given followed by a sries of paired words. There are a number of spaces between each pair of words. For each pair of words respondants indicate where they would place their feelings in relation to the attitude object

Question 45

What are smokescreen, leading and critical questions

Answer 45

Smokescreen: A question included to deliberately try and obscure the aim of the research Critical question: The question that researchers will focus on most when analysing their data Leading question: A type of question that may cause the participents to give a particular answer

Question 46

what are the three types of correlations

Answer 46

Positive: as one variable increases the other one increases Negative: as one variable decreases the other one decreases No Correlations: There is no relationship between variables

Question 47

what does it mean to operanationalise variables

Answer 47

to state how variables will be measured

Question 48

what are co variables

Answer 48

the 2 parts are being compared

Question 49

what is a correlation coefficiant

Answer 49

a numerical value that quantifies strength direction of the linear relationship