Experiments

• Aim - what you want to achieve/what you want to study
• Method - experiments, questionnaire
• Sample - people in your research
• Procedure - step by step plan (verbatim instructions)
• Results - findings of the experiment (qualitative/quantitative)
• Conclusion - how we interpret the data
• Variable - Something that can change
• Independent variable - the variable that is being manipulated
• Dependent variable - the change that is measured
• Extraneous variables - variables that could affect the dependent variable by accident
• Confounding variables - if they affect the data they are confounding or confusing the data
• Operationalisation - the process of making variables physically measurable or testable
• Operationalisation allows precise hypotheses to be constructed
• Operationalisation examples

  • stress e.g. blood pressure, ask them
  • intelligence e.g. IQ test scores
  • aggression e.g. blood pressure, violence
  • memory e.g. tests (colour of words)
• Aims v hypothesis

  • an aim is a general statement of why the study is being carried out
  • a hypothesis states precisely what you expect to show (and includes the IV and DV in their operationalised form)
• Null hypothesis - states that the IV has no effect on DV, sentence starts with 'there is no difference'
• Directional hypothesis - states the direction in which the results are going to go in
• Only use directional hypothesis when you can predict accurately based on past research and common sense
• Non-directional states that there is a difference but we don't say which way (two-tailed)
• Population - everybody you want to study (target population), could be too many/time consuming
• Sample/participants - the people you actually end up studying
• For samples generally larger samples are good because they are more representative
• Bias - to favour something over another/lean towards a specific side
• Which countries produce/conduct research?

  • Western
  • Education
  • Industry
  • Rich
  • Developed
• Generalisability - how far can your results apply