Practical Investigations- Activity C

Which method did you use?- Lab experiment. This was used instead of a field experiment because reaction time behavior doesn't occur often in real life.

A strength and weakness of the method- High level of control, low ecological validity.

Which design was used?- Independent measures design.

A strenght and weakness of the design- more data can be collected, individual differences can affect the results.

Ethical issue that should be considered- Deception to prevent demand characteristics, confidentiality (the audience saw the reaction times).

Others ways of measuring the dependant variable- instead of a reaction time test we could have used a ruler.

How could this effect the results?- The ruler test is less valid as there may be human error. The online test has a timer so more accurate.

Improvements made to the activity- The sample size by using 1000 participants, 500 female, 500 male from 16-90 from 50 different countries, more controls (same chair, same time of day, same noise control (tape recorder)).

How would the improvements affect the results?- Representative of society, more reliable if more controls.

Which sampling method was used?- Oppertunity sample of the people that were available in the psychilogy class at the time. They were all psychology students.

Strengths and weaknesses of the sampling method- Quick, easy and convenient, isn't representative of all people.