Experimental Methods

• What is operationalisation?

  The process of clearly defining variables in terms of how they can be measured (making something testable/measurable).
• What are aims?

  Aims are general statements that describe the purpose of an investigation

  
  

  e.g. to investigate whether violent media makes people more violent in real life.
• What is a hypothesis?

  A hypothesis is a statement that is made at the start of a study and clearly describes the relationship between variables as stated by the theory

  
  

  e.g. there's a difference in the number of fights at school between people who play violent video games and people who don't.
• Hypotheses

  • There are two possible hypotheses - null (proves theory wrong) or alternate
  • Alternate hypotheses are experimental, and they can be either directional (where a prediction is made about the direction of any difference) or non-directional (where no prediction is made about the direction of any difference)
• What is the formula used to create a directional hypothesis?

  ''Operationalised IV1'' will have ''operationalised DV'' than/in comparison to ''operationalised IV2.''
• What is the formula used to create a non-directional hypothesis?

  There will be a difference in ''operationalised DV'' between ''operationalised IV''.