psychology

• operationalisation definition

  ensuring variables are in a form that can be easily tested
• standardised procedures 


  .set of procedures that are the same for all participants in order to be able to repeat a study

  .they are the same for everyone because if anything changes, varying results could be caused by other things rather than the IV
• experimental method


  .the only research method that allows researchers to show cause and effect

  . experiments allow u to work out which variable causes an event and they look for differences
• what must u begin with

  an aim so your experiment has clear intentions
• hypothesis 


  . a precise and testable statement about the assumed relationship between variables (different to a prediction which is just a guess)

  . must mention IV and be clear on its conditions as well as what are measuring and differences
• extraneous variables 


  all other things that could affect your results that we must try to keep as constant as possible
• external validity 


  the degree to which a research finding can be generalised to: other setting , other groups of people and other times
• internal validity 


  the degree to which an observed effect was due to the experimental manipulation rather than other factors
• confounding variables 


  systematically affects the DV but is not the IV
• mundane realism 


  how well an experiment mirrors every day life
• directional hypothesis 


  states the direction of the difference between two conditions

  e.g people who average 8 hours or more of sleep per night have better marks in class tests than people who sleep for less
• non- directional hypothesis

  states there is a difference between two conditions without starting the direction of the difference

  e.g people who average 8 or more hours sleep per night have different marks in tests
• pilot study 


  a small-scale trial run of a study to gets any aspects of the design ,with a view to making improvements
• purpose of a pilot study 


  identify flaws so that they can be dealt with before going to the time and expense of conducting a full scale study
• order effects 


  occur when participants‘ responses in the various conditions are affected by the order of conditions to which they were exposed.
• demand characteristics 


  participants change their behaviour in line with the perceived demands of the situation

  . cues that make participants unconsciously aware of the aims of a study
• investigator effects 


  variables that are unconsciously introduced by the researcher , sometimes leading to a fulfilment of their expectations
• participant variables 


  characteristics of participants eg. age, intelligence, motivation, experience, gender

  they acts as extraneous variables in an independent groups design and may become confounding variables if not controlled