Experiment key words

Counterbalancing: A way of controlling for order effects by having half of the participants complete condition A followed by condition B; the other participants complete condition B by condition A.

Demand characteristics: Aspects of the experiment may act as cues to behaviour that cause the participants (and the experimenter) to change the way they behave.

Dependent variable: The effect of the IV or what's measured in an experiment.

Ethical guidelines: A set list of guidelines for research involving human practise, issued by the BPS, designed to protect the wellbeing and dignity of participants.

External validaty: The validaty of a study outside the research situation and the extent to which the findings can be generalised (ecological validaty.)

Field experiment: Conducting research in an everyday environment (eg. school and hospital) where 1+ IV's are manipulated by the experimenter and the effect (DV) is measured.

Hypothesis: A statement explaining precisely what the researcher believes to be true about the target population and is a testable statement.

Independent variable: The manipulated variable.

Internal validaty: Whether the IV caused effect on the DV, or whether some other factor were responsible (methodology.)

Inter-observer reliabilty: If several observers are coding behaviour in an observational study or rating should agree with each other.

Laboratory experiment: A method of conducting research in which researchers try to control all of the variables but one, independent variable.

Matched participants design: Seperate groups of participants are used matched on a one-to-one basis on characteristics (age or sex) to control for the possible effects of individuals differences.

Null hypothesis: A statement of no difference/no correlation- the IV doesn't affect the DV.

Operationalisation: Being able to define variables…