Research Methods

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What is an aim?
The purpose of the research study
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What is a hypothesis?
States the relationship between the independent variable and the dependent variable
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What is the IV?
Independent variable- something you change/manipulate in an experiment
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What is the DV?
Dependent variable- something that stays the same in an experiment to be compared against the IV
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What is a directional hypothesis?
Says how the IV will affect the DV - also known as a one-tailed hypothesis
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What is a non-directional hypothesis?
Says that the IV will affect the DV but does not say how - also known as a two-tailed hypothesis
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What is a lab experiment?
controlled environment with controlled variables
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What is a field experiment?
study in an everyday, uncontrolled setting
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What is a natural experiment?
having an IV that could change anyway, e.g weather
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What is a quasi experiment?
study differences between people
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What is operationalisation?
defining variables in terms of how they can be measured
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What is an extraneous variable?
Unwanted variable that cannot be controlled
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What is a confounding variable?
something uncontrolable that effects the IV & DV , making it difficult to see the impact that the IV has on the DV
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What is randomisation?
Researcher uses chance in the study wherever possible, to reduce investigator effects
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What is standardisation?
all procedures are standardised, so each participants has the same environment, information and experience
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What are demand characteristcs?
clues that help the participant to guess the aim of the study
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What are investigator effects?
any effects that occur due to the influence of the researcher onto the participant
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What are the five sampling techniques?
random, systematic, stratified, voluntary, opportunist
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What is the random sampling technique?
everyone in the target population was randomly chosen
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What is the systematic sampling technique?
every n'th person of the target population is selected
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What is the stratified sampling technique?
composition of the sample reflects of people in certain strata in the target population
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What is the voluntary sampling technique?
people put themselves forward to participate
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What is the opportunist sampling technique?
selects anyone who is willing to participate
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What are the five main ethical issues in a research study?
Informed consent, Right to withdraw, Protection from harm, Privacy and confidentiality, Deception
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What is presumptive consent?
get consent from a similar group of people to the group that is being studied
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What is prior general consent?
ppts give sonsent to various different studies at once- one of which will be deception
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What is retrospective consent?
participant are asked for their consent during debriefing, after the study
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What is a pilot study?
small scale 'trial run' of the investigation, taking place before the real investigation
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What is a single-blind procedure?
only the participants are unaware of the aim
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What is a double-blind procedure?
both the participants and the researcher are unaware of the true aim
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What are the types of observation?
Naturalistic, Controlled, Covert, Overt, Participant, Non-participant
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What is a controlled observation?
watching and recording behaviours within a controlled setting
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What is an overt observation?
participants are aware they're being observed
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What is a covert observation?
participants are unaware that they're being studied
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What is a participant observation?
researcher gets actively involved with the study
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What is a non-participant observation?
researcher remains uninvolved from the study
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What is a naturalistic observation?
researcher observes and records behaviour as it would normally occur
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What is a structured observation?
researcher uses systems to organise the observation, e.g sampling techniques and behavioural categories
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What is an unstructured observation?
every instance of a behaviour is recorded as it occurs
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What are behavioural categories?
characteristics that the researcher looks for and records as they occur
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What is event sampling?
researcher records every time a specific behaviour occurs
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What is time sampling?
records all behaviours present within a fixed time frame
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What are the two self-report techniques?
questionairres and interviews
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What are the three guiding principles for a questionaire?
Clarity, Bias, Analysis
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What are the four guiding principles for interviews?
Clarity, Bias, Analysis, Recording
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What is a likert scale?
Agreement scale - strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree
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What is a rating scale?
number like scale - scale of 1 to 5
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What is a fixed choice option scale?
choose one answer only - age?
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What are quantitative methods?
Questionaires, Structured interviews, Semi-structured interviews, Observations, Lab experiments, Quasi experiment, Natural experiment, Correlational studies
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What are qualitative methods?
Unstructured interviews, Semi-structured interviews, Observations, Field experiments
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What is quantitative data?
numerical data that is easy to anaylise
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What is qualitative data?
worded data, difficult to analyse
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What is triangulation?
using more than one method for the same research
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What do correlational studies measure?
relationship between two co-variables
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What is meta-analysis?
combining the data from a large number of research studies
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What is meant by measures of central tendency?
averages about the most typical values in a set of data. MEAN, MEDIAN, MODE
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What is meant by measures of dispersion?
how much scores vary and differ within a set of data. RANGE, STANDARD DEVIATION
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What is standard devation?
a single value that tells us how far scores deviate from the mean. The larger the SD, the greater the dispersion of data. A low SD score reflects that participants answered in similar ways (the data is tightly clustered around the mean)
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What is discrete data?
data that is divided into groups, e.g blood type
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What is continuous data?
data that has no boundaries and can be any value, e.g height
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What is a bar chart?
when data is divided into categories and graphically displayed so that the difference in mean values can be easily seen
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What is a histogram?
a graph that shows continuous data because the bars touch
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What is a scattergram?
graphs that depict associations between co-variables (rather than differences)
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What is a line graph?
represents continuous data and uses the points connected by lines to show how something changes in value
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What does a normal distribution curve look like?
This data will be distributed symmetrically, forming a bell-shaped-curve, with the mean, median and mode occupying the mid point
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What is a positive skew distribution?
unsymmetrical data. Concerntrated data to the left, long tail on the right. Mode is the highest point, then median and then mean is dragged across to the right
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What is a negative skew distribution?
unsymmetrical data. Skew to the right and tail on the left. Mode is the highest point, then median, and then mean is dragged across to the left
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What is a null hypothesis?
a hypothesis that states there is no significant difference between the variables and if there is, its down to chance
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What is a peer-review?
All aspects of a researchers written investigation must be scrutinised by a small group of experts in a particular field before it can be published
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What is the aim of peer-reviews?
To allocate research funding, to validate the quality and relevance of research, and to suggest ammendments or imporvements
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Who suggested the idea of paradigms?
Kunn in 1962
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What is a paradigm?
A set of shared assumptions and agreed methods within scientific discipline, Kunn suggested that they can distinguish between a science and a non-science.
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What is a paradigm shift?
when researchers question the accepted paradigm, this then snowballs, until eventually a paradigm shift occurs because there was too much conflicting evidence against the previous paradigm
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What is a theory?
A set of general laws that have the ability to explain particular behaviours, they're constructed by gathering evidence, clear and precise predictions should be able to be made off of the basis of them
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What is hypotheses testing?
an essential part of a theory that can be scientifically tested
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What is meant by deduction?
process of driving new hypothesis from an exsisting theory
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Outline Poppers ideas of falsification
everything is able to go through the process of falsification, and that nothing can be proved, it just hasn't be falsified yet.
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What is replicability?
replicability shows whether results/ideas of a theory remain the same when they're repeated, if different they've been falsified
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What is objectivity?
when all sources of personal bias are minimised so they don't influence or distort the research process
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What is empiricism?
the gathering of evidence through direct observation and experience. If its scientific, the observation should be able to be repeated at any time, on any day, by any one.
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What is test-retest reliability?
doing the same research with the same method and using the same sample, upon a different occassion
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What is inter-researcher reliability?
tow researchers carrying out the same research at teh same time, using the same sample, behavioural categories and method BUT recording independently
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How can the reliability of interviews be improved?
using the same researcher where possible, to reduce investigator effects
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How can the reliability of observations be improved?
record the observations for yourself and other researchers to rewatch so you don't miss anything
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How can the reliability of experients be improved?
using a lab experiment will ensure strict control over the variables
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How can the reliability of questionaires be improved?
use the same closed questions on the same group
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What is external validity?
When the findings can be applied to everyday life
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What is internal validity?
When the controls in the experiment are precise and strict
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What is concurrent validity?
whether the results obtained are very close to, or match, those obtained on another recognised test/measure
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What is temporal validity?
whether the findings hold true over time, how far can the findings be generalised to other historical times/eras
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What is face validity?
whether the research appears to measure what it is supposed to "on the face of it"
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What is ecological validity?
whether the findings can be generalised to everyday life AND how well it predicts human behaviour based on the findings
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How can the validity of questionaires be improved?
by making them anonymous
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How can the validity of qualitative and quantitativemethods be improved?
triangulation
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How can the validity of observations be improved?
using behavioural categories
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How can the validity of experiments be improved?
standardisation
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What are the 5 sections of a scientific method?
Abstract, Introduction, Method, Results, Discussion, Referencing
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What is an abstract?
Short summary including hypothesis, aim, method/procedure, results and conclusion
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What is an introduction ?
A review of the general investigation, including relevant theories, concepts and studies that are related to the study
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What is within a method?
Sufficient details so that researchers can replicate. Sample, materials, procedure and ethics, brief, debrief, standardised instructions
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What should the results section in a scientific method contain?
Summary of the key findings of the investigation, including statistics, e.g tables, graphs, charts, stat tests, calculated and critical values, level of significnce
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What should the discussion section in a scientific method contain?
Summary of results in verbal form, e.g issues with method, sample etc, how to overcome the issues, real-world-applications and contributions that the study has made to the existing knowledge-base within the field
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What should the referencing section in a scientific method contain?
Full details of any source material that the researcher drew upon or used in the report, e.g. books, websites, research, articles, journals etc
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What is considered then most important thing to remember about correlational studies?
Correlation does not mean causation
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What is a correlation coefficient?
Number between +1 and -1 that represents the direction and strength of a relationship between co-variables, +1 represents a perfect positive correlation, -1 represents a perfect negative correlation.
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If a correlation coefficient is close to 0, what does it suggest about the relationship between co-variables?
The relationship is weak
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If a correlation coefficient is close to +1 or -1, what does it suggest about the relationship between co-variables?
The relationship is strong
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How would you describe a relationship between co-variables if the coefficient is -0.90?
Strong negative correlation
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How would you describe a relationship between co-variables if the coefficient is 0.50?
Weak positive correlation
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How would you describe a relationship between co-variables if the coefficient is 0.13?
Weak positive correlation
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How would you describe a relationship between co-variables if the coefficient is -0.76?
Strong negative correlation
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What are descriptive statistics?
Refers to graphs, tables and summary of statistics (measures of central tendency and dispersion).
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What are inferential statistics?
Refers to the use of statistical tests which state whether the relationship foun s statistically significant or not, helping to decide which hypothesis to accept/reject
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What 3 factors should be considered when choosing a stat test?
Whether it’s looking for a difference or a correlation, the experiments design used, the level of measurement
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Card 2

Front

What is a hypothesis?

Back

States the relationship between the independent variable and the dependent variable

Card 3

Front

What is the IV?

Back

Preview of the front of card 3

Card 4

Front

What is the DV?

Back

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Card 5

Front

What is a directional hypothesis?

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