RM 3&4

Question 1

what is an aim?

Answer 1

general prediction of what the researcher intends to investigate - “to investigate”;

Question 2

What is a hypothesis?

Answer 2

general prediction about what is expected to happen/find out testable statement that states relationship between variables to be investigated (should be operationalised and testable);

Question 3

what is operationalisation?

Answer 3

Clearly defining observable behaviours in terms of how they can be measured;

Question 4

example of an aim (energy drinks, talkative)

Answer 4

To investigate whether drinking energy drinks makes people more talkative;

Question 5

what is a directional hypothesis?

Answer 5

States the direction of the difference or relationship;

Question 6

structure of a direction hypothesis?

Answer 6

“participants who” IV, DV, IV;

Question 7

example of directional hypothesis (about energy drink and talkative)

Answer 7

Participants who drink 300ml of energy drinks are more talkative (say more words per minute) than participants who drink 300ml of water;

Question 8

what is a non-directional hypothesis?

Answer 8

Does not state the direction of the difference or relationship;

Question 9

structure of a non-directional hypothesis

Answer 9

“There will be a difference in” DV “between” IV, IV;

Question 10

example of non-directional hypothesis (energy drinks, talkative)

Answer 10

there will be a difference in the amount of words spoken in 5 minutes between participants who drink 300ml of energy drinks and those who drink 300ml of water;

Question 11

when do we use directional hypothesis?

Answer 11

when there is previous research indicating direction/similar;

Question 12

when do we use non-directional hypothesis?

Answer 12

When there is no previous research or previous findings have been contradictory;

Question 13

what’s the difference between an aim and a hypothesis?

Answer 13

an aim is a statement about what the researcher is intending to investigate, whereas the hypothesis is a testable statement that is accepted or rejected at the end of the study depending on the results;

Question 14

what is a correlation?

Answer 14

relationship between two variables;

Question 15

structure of a directional correlation hypothesis

Answer 15

“There will be a” correlation type (+ve, -ve) “correlation between” 2 variables;

Question 16

structure of a non-directional correlation hypothesis

Answer 16

“There will be a correlation between” 2 variables (same but without correlation type);

Question 17

example of directional correlation hypothesis (hours spent studying and score of test)

Answer 17

There will be a positive correlation between the number of hours spent studying and the score on the psychology test out of 20;

Question 18

example of non-directional correlation hypothesis (hours spent studying and score of test)

Answer 18

There will be a correlation between the number of hours spent studying and the score on the psychology test out of 20;

Question 19

what is a null hypothesis?

Answer 19

null means zero. so a null hypothesis states that two variables are not related. just add “no”;

Question 20

what is population?

Answer 20

a large group of individuals that a researcher is interested in studying;

Question 21

what is bias in context of sampling?

Answer 21

when a certain group is over/under represented in the same sample;

Question 22

what is target population?

Answer 22

subset of the general population;

Question 23

what is a sample?

Answer 23

smaller sections of the target population;

Question 24

what are the 5 sample techniques?

Answer 24

random, opportunity, volunteer, systematic and stratified;

Question 25

what is random sampling?

Answer 25

everyone in the population has an equal chance of being studied. the researcher obtains names of everyone in the target population and then; - places everyone's name in hat or use a random name generator - pull all their names as many as needed;

Question 26

strengths and weakness of random sampling?

Answer 26

+ no researcher bias, sample representative of whole pop - may not be rep of target pop, time consuming;

Question 27

what is opportunity sampling?

Answer 27

researcher goes out to participant, based on whoever is nearest, and ask them if they want to join the study (essential to state who the target pop is);

Question 28

strengths and weakness of opportunity sampling?

Answer 28

+ not time consuming - researcher bias could occur, sample may not rep the whole pop;

Question 29

what is volunteer sampling?

Answer 29

Involves participants selecting themselves to be part of the sample - participants come to researcher - posters, radio, notice boards, tv, newspapers (when explaining how, say what the advert would say);

Question 30

strengths and weakness of volunteer sampling?

Answer 30

+ not time consuming - may not rep the target pop;

Question 31

what is systematic sampling?

Answer 31

- sampling frame is produced = a list of all people in target population - every nth person is selected - begins from a random point and is worked through unitil sample is complete;

Question 32

strengths and weakness of systematic sampling?

Answer 32

+ no researcher bias, sample likely to be rep of target pop - time consuming;

Question 33

describe stratified sampling

Answer 33

Dividing the population into subgroups then selecting a sample from each of these groups 1. strata identified in the target population 2. identify and work out proportion needed for sample 3. participants from each strata are selected randomly (hat or generator) depending on the proportion needed from each;

Question 34

strengths and weakness of stratified sampling?

Answer 34

+ avoids researcher bias, very likely to rep whole pop - time consuming;

Question 35

what is the best sampling method?

Answer 35

stratified as it avoids bias or random;

Question 36

what are the 3 experimental group designs?

Answer 36

independent, repeated measures and matched pairs;

Question 37

what is independent groups design?

Answer 37

2 separate (independent) group of participants that experience two different conditions of the experiment, uses random allocation for control;

Question 38

strengths and weakness of independent groups design?

Answer 38

(+) order effects are avoided; Participants are less likely to be affected by DC; same stimulus used for everyone (-) time consuming (cant test both p's at same time); participant variables

Question 39

what group design is random allocation used in?

Answer 39

independent group design;

Question 40

what is random allocation?

Answer 40

An attempt to control for participant variables in an independent groups design which ensures that each participant has the same chance of being in one condition as any other. - P allocated a number, numbers put in hats, drawn randomly;

Question 41

what is repeated measures design?

Answer 41

All participants take part in all/both conditions. the mean score would be compares to see if there's a difference participant variables don't have an impact x - order effects;

Question 42

what group design is order effects from?

Answer 42

repeated measures;

Question 43

strengths and weakness of repeated measures design?

Answer 43

+ P variables don't confound results, less time consuming - DC affect results, same stimulus used, order effects;

Question 44

what is order effects and what group is it from and how is it controlled?

Answer 44

(Repeated measures) Performance is influenced by the participation in previous conditions, ie practice, fatigue and boredom; controlled by counterbalancing;

Question 45

what group design uses counterbalancing?

Answer 45

repeated measures;

Question 46

what is counterbalancing?

Answer 46

An attempt to control for the effects of order in a repeated measures design: half the participants experience the conditions in one order, and the other half in the opposite order; tries to evenly distribute order effects;

Question 47

what is randomisation?

Answer 47

for RM- order that p's complete condition, produce 2 groups of participants to then counterbalance (randomly allocate participants to 1 conditional group than the other);

Question 48

what are the benefits of randomisation?

Answer 48

eliminates investigator effects/bias;

Question 49

what is matched pairs?

Answer 49

Where people are put together on similar aspects (such as age, gender, IQ) that are pre-tested and put in to separate groups. Each group experiences one level of the IV; paired then split;

Question 50

strengths and weakness of matched pairs design?

Answer 50

+ Pv likely to affect results, order effects avoided, same stimulus, less time consuming than other studies - difficult and time consuming to match P and more TC than RM;

Question 51

what is standardisation?

Answer 51

Using exactly the same formalised procedures and instructions for all participants in a research study.;

Question 52

what is a case study?

Answer 52

an in-dept study of one person or a group of people over time, its carried out in the real world longitudinally.;

Question 53

what does longitudinal mean?

Answer 53

when you repeatedly collect data from the same group of people over a period of time;

Question 54

what techniques are used in case studies?

Answer 54

IQ tests, observations, personality test, interviews;

Question 55

what are some advantages of case studies?

Answer 55

- rich data: its longitudinal so large amounts of data are gathered - high ecological validity: often studied in own environment and longitudinal - investigates situations which could not be set up for ethical reasons;

Question 56

what are the disadvantages of case studies?

Answer 56

- cant be generalisability to other individuals: each experience is unique - information gathered is often based on self report data: they might not be able to recalling past info = social desirable answers = less internal validity - difficult to replicate: unique = not possible to test external reliability of the findings - researcher bias: researcher may not individual well = loss of objectivity;

Question 57

what is primary data?

Answer 57

data that has been collected first hand by researcher, directly from participants (self-report or observation);

Question 58

what is secondary data?

Answer 58

data that already exists from a previous study but is being used within current investigation;

Question 59

what is meta analysis?

Answer 59

statistical technique for analysing secondary data involving collecting the results from previous studies, identifying recurring trends across studies and combining data to provide an overall conclusion;

Question 60

what are the advantages and dis of primary data?

Answer 60

(+) greater insight: data is authentic, matches researchers needs = internal validity (-) time consuming and expensive: have to design an experiment;

Question 61

what are the advantages and dis of secondary data?

Answer 61

+ not time consuming as data is collected second hand - lack of context and detail as data is used from previous research - original studies may not be well conducted;

Question 62

what are the advantages and dis of meta analysis?

Answer 62

+ external validity: results based on larger num of participants = high population (external) validity - internal validity: not all studies have same design, so it will be difficult to compare;

Question 63

what are the displays of quantitative data?

Answer 63

tables, graphs, scattergrams, barcharts, histograms;

Question 64

what is normal distribution?

Answer 64

the mean , mode and median would all have the same (or similar) value and would look like the figure.;

Question 65

what is positive skew?

Answer 65

mode < median < mean; data is skewed on the left and the tail is on the right, suggests test was difficult;

Question 66

what is a negative skew?

Answer 66

mean < median < mode; data is skewed on the right and tail is on the left, suggests test was easy

Question 67

what type of data presentation do we use when looking at difference?

Answer 67

bar charts or histograms;

Question 68

what type of data presentation do we use when looking at correlation/relationship?

Answer 68

scattergrams;

Question 69

when is a barchart used?

Answer 69

used when data is in categories / discrete data - categories on x axis; frequency on y axis - bars are separated;

Question 70

when is a histogram used?

Answer 70

Used when data is continuous - x axis made up of equal sized intervals, y axis is frequency The bars touch each other;

Question 71

scattergrams

Answer 71

They show relationships between co-variables rather than differences Either of the variables can be placed on the X/Y axis;

Question 72

what are the measures of central tendency?

Answer 72

mean, median, mode;

Question 73

What are the measures of dispersion?

Answer 73

range and standard deviation;

Question 74

what do measures of dispersion demonstrate

Answer 74

how effective a treatment is = large SD/range suggests treatment is only effective for some people;

Question 75

what does standard deviation tell us?

Answer 75

how varied data is to the mean;

Question 76

what does a smaller standard deviation show?

Answer 76

scores are closer to mean, scores are not very spread out = consistency across participants;

Question 77

what does a bigger standard deviation show?

Answer 77

scores not close to mean, scores are more varied/spread out = inconsistency;

Question 78

why do we use standard deviation?

Answer 78

it uses all of the data so it's less likely to be affected by anomalous results; range only takes smallest + largest so it's more likely to be affected by anomalous results;