Practical investigation (1966b)

• what was the independent variable for Baddeley's study 


  the 4 lists of acoustically similar & dissimilar and semantically similar and dissimliar
• what was the aim for Baddeley's study


  to conduct a laboratory experiment to gather quantitative data for acoustic similarity on short term memory
• what was the hypothesis of Baddeley's study 


  participants shown acoustically dissimilar words will be able to recall more in the correct order than the participant shown the acoustically similar words
• what was the null hypothesis for Baddeley 


  no difference between the number of words recalled in the 2 conditions (AS and AD) - any difference is due to chance
• what was the dependent variable for Baddeley study

  number of words recalled in the correct order out of 10 in 40 seconds
• what type of research method was this

  laboratory experiment
• what was the experimental design?


  independent groups design
• what sampling technique?


  opportunity sampling - anyone who was in the class at the time
• who were the participants?


  A level psych students aged 16-18 Shrewsbury sixth form college
• what were the control variables

  1. time the words shown for on the screen
  2. number of words in the each list
  3. all words 3 letter words - monosyllabic
• why is it important that participants were over 16 or over?


  old enough to give informed consent
• when were they told the nature of the study?


  before they were asked to take part (standardised instructions)
• when were participants told they had the right to withdraw from the study at any time?


  before they were asked to take part (standardised instructions)
• when were the participants debriefed?


  at the end of the study
• what was the research hypothesis for the practical investigation?

  participants who are shown the list of acoustically dissimilar words (pit, few, cow) will be able to recall more of those words than the participates who are shown a list of acoustically similar words (man, can, cab)
• what was the procedure of your practical investigation?


  participants were obtained using a opportunity sampling of A level psychology students aged 16-18. one class were shown the acoustically similar words. The other group was shown the list of acoustically dissimilar words creating an independent groups design. Participants told to recall words in the correct order, all give the same amount of time to recall
• what inferential statistics test is used for this investigation?


  Mann Whitney U test
• what do you have to do when describing the statistical test of the practical investigation?


  make Na and Nb reasonable for the number of children in a class and then after you can make u the data that follows and is correct finding the critical and calculated values so the hypothesis is accepted
• why was the procedure being standardised be a strength for the practical investigation?


  it means that the study had good reliability because if the study were replicated then a similar effect should be found recalling the words in the correct order when participants given same time and rate of words to recall.
• why would having amore varied age range in the participants be an improvement for the study?


  it would mean that the findings would be more generalisable to a wider range of ages and people, when recalling acoustically similar or dissimilar words.
• what is a strength of using a laboratory experiment in your practical investigation?


  more extraneous variables can be controlled meaning they wouldn't have an effect on the independent variable causing no disruption to the dependent variable
• what are some extraneous variables that can be controlled in the laboratory experiment?


  amount of syllables in each word - monosyllabic

  amount of time given to recall the words (40s)
• how did we make sure that the practical investigation adhered to ethical principles?


  before experiment the standardised instructions were read out telling the the study was on memory and if they agreed then they would take part.

  participants were 16 and older so informed consent was given