research methods

• What is a hypothesis?

  A clear,precise testable statement that states the relationship between the variables to be investigated.
• Difference between directional and non directional hypothesis

  Directional implies the results will go in one directional, non-directional results can go either.
• How do you write an aim?

  To investigate whether... affects..
• What is operationalisation?

  Clearly defining variables in terms of how they can be measured e.g variable is problem solving,operationalisation of it is time taken to complete a puzzle
• What are extraneous variables?

  Nuisance variables other than IV that affects the DV if not controlled.
• What is a confounding variable?

  Variable other than IV that may have affected the DV so we cannot be sure of the true sources of changes to the to DV
• Examples of confounding variables:

  personality,age,gender ect
• What are demand characteristics?

  Any cues from the researcher that could be seen as the purpose of the investigation.Participant then changes their behaviour based on this
• What are some examples of extraneous variables?


  Participant variables,investiagtor effects ans situational variables
• What are participant variables?

  Personal characteristics of participants which influence the results of the study e.g. personality.
• What are investigator effects and name an example?

  When the researcher influences the results of a study e.g. being intimidating,making a mistake in the study or even appearance.Researcher's expectations may even influence their behaviour and therefore the participants behaviour.
• What are situational variables?

  A type of extraneous variable that is anything external to the participants/researchers that could affect the behaviour of the participants e.g a noisy room making participants irritable.
• What are dependent variables?


  Variables measured by the researcher.Any change in this is caused by the IV.
• What are independent variables?

  An aspect of the situational experiment manipulated by the researcher(or just changed) in order to measure the effect on the DV.
• What is randomisation?

  The use of chance wherever possible to reduce the researcher's influence over the design of the study e.g. randomising order of tasks.
• What is an independent groups design?


  Two groups of different people each experience a different condition(different level of IV).Performance of groups then compared to see if there's a difference.
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of an independent groups design?


  STRENGTHS: order effects not a problem(only 1 condition) WEAKNESSES:different groups of people might affect results of the study as it could be because of individual differences.To combat this random allocation is used.Twice as many participants needed to produce equivalent data to repeated measures.
• What is a repeated measures design?


  All participants experiencing both conditions of the experiment(including a control condition).Two sets of data from both conditions compared to see if there's a difference.We can compare 'like' with 'like'.
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of a repeated measures?


  STRENGTHS: participant variables controlled,less participants needed WEAKNESSES:order of tasks may be significant(order effects). Order effects may arise from repeating the same tasks which can cause boredom or fatigue.Also performance may be influenced by practise.Counterbalancing(different order of conditions)used to counter this.Demand characteristics also present.
• What is the S(calculated value)

  Draw table -participants and then tick or cross whether it is an increase or decrease or an equals if something stays the same(eliminate this later).S value is the least common difference.
• How do you identify the appropriate statistical test?

  Identify the type of data ,identify if there's a group(repeated or independent) and whether a difference or correlation is being investigated.
• Types of data in statistical testing

  nominal-data categorised e.g. favourite foods

  ordinal-ranked data e.g. scores and ratings

  interval data-Data that is measured/numerically expressed e.g. number of heart beats per minute.
• Independent and repeated measures design both investigate differences.
• Acronym for statistical testing

  I R C -im really cool -independent,repeated,correlations

  N C S C -no cars should crash - nominal,chi 2, sign test,chi 2

  O M W S -only men watch sports-ordinal,mann whitney, wilcoxon ,spearmans rho

  I U R P - injured unicorns roar painfully-interval,unrelated t test,related t test,Pearsons R
• How do you calculate degrees of freedom?

  Multiplying(number of) ( rows-1) and (columns-1)
• When is chi 2 used?

  Used when we've counted how many occurences there are in each category and when a hypothesis predicts a difference between co-variables.There should be at least 22 ppl in a contigency table,
• Null hypothesis and alternative hypothesis.

  Null hypothesis-no effect or difference(no relationship between the two co-variables).

  Alternative hypothesis-relationship between co-variables
• what is a significance level?


  Point at which research can claim to have discovered a significsnt difference-reject null and accept alternative
• What significance level is favoured and why


  0.05-best balances the risk of making type l and type ll errors.
• 0.05 means there's up to a 5% chance the results are not significant
• what is type l error,when does it happen?


  -false positive(null rejected and alternative accepted when it should have been the other way round)-happens when significance level is too lenient(too high e.g. 0.1)
• what is a type ll error and when it does happen

  -false negative(null accepted,alternative rejected when it should have been the other way round)-happens when signicance level is too stringent(too low such as 0.01)