Research Methods Y2

Question 1

What are the 4 features of science??

Answer 1

• Objectivity
• Empirical method
• Replicability
• Hypothesis testing

Question 2

What does objectivity mean and which type of experiment is most objective??

Answer 2

Avoiding personal bias
Lab experiments

Question 3

What is the empirical method??

Answer 3

Using observable evidence to draw conclusions and draw theories

Question 4

What’s a correlation??

Answer 4

Association between 2 variables is investigated

Question 5

What are co-variables??

Answer 5

Variables in a correlation

Question 6

What’s a correlation coefficient??

Answer 6

Tells us strength & direction of the relationship between co-variables (between –1 and +1)

Question 7

How do we know if a correlation is strong or weak??

Answer 7

Closer to +1 or -1 = strong
Closer to 0 = weak

Question 8

What does the tests table look like (the one with nominal data, etc…)??

(need to memorise fully)

Answer 8

Independent groups Repeated Measures Correlation
Nominal Chi-squared Sign test Chi-squared
Ordinal Mann-Whitney Wilcoxon Spearman’s rank
Interval Unrelated t-test Related t-test Pearson’s R

Question 9

What’s ordinal data??

Answer 9

Data based on subjective opinion

Question 10

What’s interval data??

Answer 10

Numerical scales that include units of equal size (units that are globally the same. E.g. 26 degrees Celsius in England is the same as 26 degrees Celsius in China.

Question 11

What’s the Rule of ‘R’??

Answer 11

Test names that have an ‘R’ in their name:

The calculated value needs to be equal to or more than the critical value for the results to be significant.

Question 12

What’s the statement of significance for Spearman’s Rho??

Answer 12

If the calculated value (x) of rho (ignoring the +/-) is more than or equal to the critical value, at a probability of 0.05, then the result is significant.

Therefore, the null hypothesis is rejected and there’s a significant correlation between X and Y.

Question 13

What’s content analysis??

Answer 13

A method of studying behaviour by analysing behaviour in the media they have produced (like social media and speeches)

Question 14

What are the 2 stages of content analysis??

Answer 14

1. Coding
2. Thematic analysis

Question 15

Explain the first stage of content analysis!

Answer 15

Stage 1 = coding
Process of categorising information, turns qualitative data into quantitative data. Behaviours are assigned a code to be analysed numerically

Question 16

Explain the second stage of content analysis!

Answer 16

Stage 2 = thematic analysis
Researcher looks for themes within the categories formed during coding (stage 1). Theme=recurring idea

Question 17

What are the 3 evaluation points of content analysis??

Answer 17

• External validity
• No ethical issues (the data it uses is already in public domain)
• Subjective (Researcher may attribute alternative opinions that weren’t intended)

Question 18

What are 2 ways of improving reliability of an experiment??

Answer 18

• Inter-observer reliability (More than one observer, can check behavioural categories are being applied correctly)
• Inter-rater reliability (more than one researcher analysing collected data, used for interviews, questionnaires and content analysis)

Question 19

What are 2 ways of checking if a study is reliable??

Answer 19

• Test retest (carry out research with same sample, results should be the same)
• Conduct a correlation and then find a correlation coefficient (if it’s more than +0.8 then it’s reliable)

Question 20

What are the 3 types of validity??

Answer 20

• Internal (No third factor influencing DV)
• External (Can it be generalised to other settings?)
• Temporal (Were the findings specific to their time? If it was conducted today would the results be the same?)

Question 21

What are 3 ways of checking that studies are valid??

Answer 21

• Face validity (On the surface, does it measure what it claims to?)
• Concurrent validity (When results of the study are similar to those of a more-established one)
• Correlation coefficient being above +0.8 like with reliability

Question 22

How can we make lab experiments, questionnaires and observations more valid??

Answer 22

Lab experiments: standardise, double-blind procedure

Questionnaires: Keep them anonymous, avoid leading questions

Observations: Covert, use specific behaviourist categories

Question 23

Validity is enhanced using triangulation.

What is triangulation??

Answer 23

Using data from 3 different sources, collecting data in 3 different ways

Question 24

What does p≤ 0.05 mean??

Answer 24

There is up to a 5% chance that the results occurred by chance!

Question 25

What's a type 1 error??

Answer 25

A false positive! Null hypothesis is rejected when it should've been accepted Occurs when significance level is too high (10% instead of 5%) p≤ 0.1

Question 26

What's a type 2 error??

Answer 26

A false negative! Null hypothesis is accepted when it should've been rejected Occurs when significance level is too low (1% instead of 5%) p≤ 0.01

Question 27

What letters do the Mann-Whitney and Wilcoxon tests use?? And how do we know if the data is significant??

Answer 27

Mann-Whitney uses 'U' Wilcoxon uses 'T' The data is significant when the calculated value is less than the critical value!

Question 28

What letters do the unrelated t-test and related t-test use??

Answer 28

T

Question 29

What's different about the chi-squared test as opposed to the other tests of difference??

Answer 29

It uses df (degrees of freedom) instead of N (number of ppts) for finding the critical value

Question 30

What's the equation for df (degrees of freedom)??

Answer 30

(No. of rows - 1) x (No. of columns - 1)