deciding on a research

• operationalising variables= defining the variables in a way that makes them measurable
• types of variables:

  • independent variables
  • dependent variables
  • extraneous variables
  • confounding variables
• independant variables= variable the researcher changes
• dependent variable= variable the researcher measures
• co-variables= two variables measured in a correlation study
• extraneous variables= variables that arent being measured but affect the results
• confounding variables= variables that arent being measured that affect some ppts behaviours
• 4 main extraneous variables:

  • situational
  • participant
  • researcher
  • order effects
• participant variables= individual characteristics of each ppt that may impact their response
• to deal with ppt variables= repeated measures or matched pairs design
• order effects= difference in ppt responses from the order the materials are presented to them
• to deal with order effects= independent groups, matched pairs design, ABBA design
• researcher effects= researcher unintentionally influences the outcome
• to deal with researcher effects= double blind design
• aim= a statement of what a researcher intends to find out
• research hypothesis= a prediciton of the outcome
• experimental hypothesis= research hypothesis for experiments
• alternative hypothesis= hypothesis for non-experiments
• null hypothesis= a prediction that any difference or correlation is not significant and due to chance
• directional hypothesis= predicts the direction a DV will change when the IV is manipulated
• use directional hypothesis when previous research indicates the outcome
• non-directional hypothesis= predicts a change on the DV but not a direction
• use non-directional hypothesis when there is no previous data