psychological skills

• What is qualitative data?

  Data that is descriptive not numerical, indepth and insightful. Involves interpretation and is therefore subjective

  Example is case studies
• How do you analyse qualitaive data?

  Content analysis

  A example of this was our practical investigation for ClinicalPsychology in which we examined three newspaper sources in terms ofhow they portrayed mental health
• What are the issues surrounding reliability and qualitative data?

  Unreliable as it is impossible to carry out the same research to see if the same outcomes would occur, and therefore advocates of the scientific method would argue that the method is unreliable and down to chance.
• Does qualitative data have high ecological validity?

  Qualitative data could be said to have a high level of ecological validity. This is because the data is extracted from real-world examples written by real people. As such it is more phenomenological in its nature than any data extracted from laboratory testing. As a result, the data gathered is far more likely to reflect actual human experience.
• Thematic analysis

  • Technique used when analysing qualitative data
  • data is produced from for example from transcripts of an interview and then themes or categories are identified
  • researcher then goes through the transcripts and notes where each theme is found and may draw out examples
  • Thus responses can be organised according according to these themes and patterns can be identified
• What is grounded theory?

  A bottom up technique used when analysing qualitative data. It is an 'emergent' research process in which theoretical explanations emerge during the course of the investigation which lead to new explanations.
• What is quantitative data?

  Focuses on numbers, data that can be counted or measured and looks at average and differences between groups
• Quantitative data

  • Easier to analyse due to data is in numbers which can be summarised using descriptive statistics- easier to draw conclusions
  • More objective measure because measurements should be the same no matter who is doing the measuring and therefore reliable.
  • May not express participants exact thoughts and feelings
• What is a random sample?

  Participants are selected randomly for example using a random generator to pick out participants

  +unbiased

  -hard to carry out unless population is small
• What is a stratified sample?


  Target population has salient characteristics that need to be proportionately represented in the sample recruited

  +representative

  -each sample may be biased
• What is volunteer sample?


  recruited via an advert and researcher has no control

  +access to variety of participants

  -bias sample as participants are more likely to be motivated
• What is opportunity sampling?

  Makes use of who is available at the time

  +easiest method

  -biased sample as small
• Experimental design:

  The process of choosing an experimental design involves deciding what you want to test and how you are going to test it. This is referred to asoperationalising your IV and your DV. A critical decision is whether you would like to have one group of participants who do all levels of the IV, or whether you will have more than one group of participants, each of whom does just one level of the IV. How you use your participants is referred to as experimental design.
• What is repeated measures?

  Each participant takes part in every condition being tested. Each condition represents one level of the IV. There may be a control condition.

  +Good control of participant variables because the same person is tested twice or more

  -Order effects are produced, Participants may guess the purpose of the experiment because they do both conditions
• What is independent groups design?

  Different participants are allocated to two (or more) experimental groups representing different levels of the independent variable. There may be a control group.

  +Avoids order effects and participants will find it more difficult to guess the aims of the experiment

  -No control of participant variables
• What are order effects?

  Repeated measures may produce order effects, where a participant may be better on the second test because they get better with experience (apractice effect) or may perform less well because of being bored or tired (a fatigue effect). We can address this problem using counterbalancing.

  • counterbalancing is varying the order participants experience each condition
• What are Extraneous variables ?

  any variable other than the IV that might potentially affect the DV and confuse results
• What are confunding variables?

  A confounding variable is an unmeasured third variable that

  influences, or “confounds,” the relationship between an independent

  and a dependent variable by suggesting the presence of a spurious

  correlation.
• What is matched pair's design?

  Participants who are very similar on key variables (e.g. memory, ability, age)are paired. One member of the pair is placed in group A and the other is placed in group B.

  +Avoids order effects because it is like an independent groups

  -very time consuming to match participants on key variables
• What is a alternate hypothesis ?

  the researcher makes aq statement about what they expect to find. If results show significant result the alternate hypothesis is accepted
• What is a experimental hypothesis ?

  researcher will make a statement about what they expect to find in the context of the experimental research- accepted if results are significant
• What is a null hypothesis ?

  statement which describes war is not going to happen- any difference o relationship they expect to find is not going to occur in a statistically significant way
• Directional one tailed hypothesis:

  Will state the direction of the hypothesis- specifying if a result will end up in a particular way

  For example, people who sleep for eight hours have a higher score on a memory test than those who sleep for five hours
• Non directional two tailed hypothesis:

  Just states a difference- results can go either way

  For example, people whop sleep for eight ours perform differently on a memory test than those who sleep for five hours
• What is key to include when stating an hypothesis ?

  To be specific by including details from the text given such as what they are investigating or the scale being recorded
• What is a field experiment ?

  Manipulating an IV and measuring a DV but takes place in a real setting
• What is a lab experiment ?

  manipulate the IV whilst controlling the environment and extraneous variables measuring the effect of IV on the DV
• evaluation of field experiment:

  • high ecological validity as the setting and task are realistic
  • may produce low demand characteristics
  • lack of internal validity and control over variables
• evaluation of lab experiments:

  • internal validity- as all other variables are controlled it can be sure that the IV caused the DV
  • artificial environment- participants would not normally be under these circumstances
• what are the different types of observation?

  • participant
  • non participant
  • covert
  • overt
  • naturalistic
  • structured
• what are the problems with correlation?

  Cannot establish cause and effect
• whats the difference between participant and non participant?

  Participant observation involves the researcher taking part in the study and non participant doesn't
• what are the strengths and weaknesses of conducting covert observation?

  • gather ecologically valid
  • no social desirability bias/demand characteristics
  • ethical considerations
• what are the strengths and weaknesses with overt observation?

  • ethical- give consent
  • participants may act artificial
  • less valid data gathered
• what are the strengths and weaknesses of structured observation?

  • reliable as uses standardised procedure
  • lacks ecological validity
  • effect actual behaviour
  • artificial environment
• what is a naturalistic observation?

  The enironment is not manipulated in any way
• what is a correlational study?

  Aims to measure two variables to see if there is a relationship
• positive correlation

  when one variable increases and so does the other
• negative correlation

  when one variable increases the other decreases
• what is the strongest correlation?

  When the number is closest to 1