year 13 psychology research methods

• reliability 


  the consistency of measurements

  we would expect any measurement to produce the same data if taken on successive occasions
• what should an observation produce if its reliable

  the first and second observer should have the same or similar observations
• what is a good way to asses accuracy in observations 


  have 2 or more observers making separate recordings and then compare them
• what is inter observer reliability 


  the extent to which there is agreement between two or more observers involved on observations of a behaviour
• how can you improve scores for inter rater reliability 


  operationalise behavioural categories to make them clearer

  train observers as they may need to practise using behavioural categories to respond quickly
• how is the agreement between workers calculated 


  using the correlation coefficient / plotting a graph with both observers on (observer a on one axis and observer b on the other )
• why is it important to have reliability in self report techniques like questionnaires 


  we need to know whether results e.g of a happiness test differ per week due to the person or the test ( if the test is unreliable or not )
• what is test-re-test used for 


  used to asses the reliability of a psychological test to other self report measure
• what is test re test 


  when the test designer gives the test to a group of people and then gives the same people the test to take a second time - leaving a short interval
• how do you know if your test is reliable when using test re test 


  if the outcome is the same both times
• how could you see the reliability of interviewers 


  compare the answers of one interviewer on one occasion with the answers of the same interviewer a week later
• what could low reliability in a psychological test be caused by 


  ambiguous test items causing people to give different answers
• how can you improve low reliability in psychological tests 


  re examine questions and re write them to reduce ambiguity
• what could reliability in an experiment be concerned with 


  with whether the method used to measure the dependent variable is consistent eg the observations or self report method
• what is another aspect of reliability in experiments


  the procedure - it is important that it is the same each time for each participant
• why is it important to keep the procedure the same 


  so we can compare the results and performance of participants
• how can you keep the procedure the same 


  standardise the procedure
• what should a researcher do if they want to repeat someones experiment 


  use the same set of standardised procedure
• what is validity 


  refers to whether an observed effect is a genuine one
• internal validity 


  concerns about what goes on within a study
• external validity


  concerns about what goes on after the study - concerns generalising the findings to other people times and settings
• examples of internal validity 


  investigator effets

  demand characteristics

  confounding variables

  social desirability bias

  poorly operationalised behavioural categories
• investigator effects 


  anything the investigator does that had an affect on the participants performance other than what was intended
• demand characteristics


  cues that inadvertently communicate the aims of the study to participants
• confounding variables 


  a variable in an experiment that caries systematically with the IV and therefore conclusions can't be drawn about what caused changes in DV
• Social desirability bias 


  the tendency for participants to provide answers that don't refelct reality as people prefer to show themselves in a good light
• poorly operationalised behavioural categories 


  observers cant record reality as the categories aren't clear
• types of external validity 


  population - generalising to other people

  temporal - generalising to other historical periods

  ecological - generalising to other settings
• ecological validity 


  being able to generalise findings from one study to other situations and to every day life
• what do we need to consider when determining the ecological validity of a natural experiment 


  the DV - we need to consider the method used to asses the DV and whether this e.g iq tests are done in an artificial way
• what do we need to consider when determining the ecological validity of a field experiment 


  the task used to measure the DV
• what questions can you ask when trying to determine ecological validity of a study 


  what environment was the study conducted in (less about this more about the other questions )

  how was the DV measure

  were the participant aware their behaviour was being studied
• what is mundane realism 


  refers to how a study mirrors the real world
• what is face validity 


  the extent to which test items look like hat the test claims to measure

  face validity only requires an intuitive measure
• what is concurrent validity 


  a means of establishing validity by comparing and existing test or questionnaire with the one you are interested in
• how do you use concurrent validity 


  by giving participants both measures at the same time and then their scores are compared
• what would show there is concurrent validity in the current questionnaire 


  if people get similar scores on both measurements
• how can you improve face validity 


  revise the questions so they relate more obviously to the topic
• how can you improve concurrent validity 


  remove questions which may seem irrelevant and try checking the concurrent validity again
• how can you improve internal and external validity 


  improve research design - use a double blind experiment to prevent participants guessing researchers aims