aims, hypothesis, variables

• aim


  a general statement about what the researcher aims to study (the purpose of the study)
• hypothesis 


  a clear and testable statement that states the relationship between the variables to be investigated
• one-tailed-hypothesis (directional)

  • the researcher makes it clear what sort of difference they’re expecting between the two conditions
  • includes words such as: more or less, higher or lower, faster or slower
• two-tailed hypothesis (non-directional)

  • simply states that there will be a difference between the conditions, but doesn’t specify the direction
  • normally used when there is contradicting or a lack of previous research
• independent variable (IV)


  the variable that the researcher manipulates or occurs naturally
• dependent variable (DV)


  what the researcher is measuring
• operationalisation 


  clearly defining variables in terms of how they can be measured

  eg. instead of saying the height if someone, say how tall a person is in CM