Psychology evaluation cheatsheet

Student samples: Age bias, lack generalisation to wider population.

Laboratory studies: Lack ecological validity due to artificial settings, demand characteristic's possible as participants know they are being observed, lack external validity if the setup can not be applied to the real world. Strengths however: Easy to replicate and check reliability, more control over the experiment to measure the effect of the DV and limit extraneous variables from affecting results.

Lack of internal validity: Anything that suggests you are not measuring what you want to measure can be argued to affect the results as they lack internal validity. This could personality variables,

Lack of mundane realism: Do the tasks lack realism? If they are not indicative of real world situations = Lack of mundane realism can be used as a criticism.

Gender bias: Only men or women involved? The findings may suffer from…