Psychology-Research methods

• Confidentiality


  Concerns, the communication of personal information and the trust that the information will be protected.

  Cannot be broken
• Deception

  Not told the true aims of the study, and this cannot give valid consent. Sometimes necessary to avoid participants alternative behaviour.

  Can be broken
• Risk of stress, anxiety, humiliation, or pain

  Participant should not experience negative physical or psychological effects: injury, lower self-esteem, and embarrassment beyond normal.

  Cannot be broken
• Risk to the PPS, values, beliefs, relationships, status or privacy


  Psychologists should make a broad consideration of the impact that they research may have to ensure peoples attitudes and opinions are not deemed or that their associations with other people aren’t damaged by research.

  Cannot be broken
• valid consent


  Reveal the true aims of the study, obtaining full informed consent before the study .

  Can be broken
• Working with vulnerable individuals

  Valid consent needs to be obtained from the person legally responsible, the individual, parent or guardian.

  Cannot be broken
• Working with animals

  Animals scientific procedures act 1986-have the best quality/best standards

  Triple license – location, research researcher

  Minimise discomfort

  Research asked to consider alternatives to use animals

  Members of bps should follow guidelines for psychologists, working with animals, 2012.

  Cannot be broken
• Ethical guidelines


  What behaviours are not acceptable

  How psychologist should deal with specific dilemmas
• Right to withdraw


  If PPS feel uncomfortable or distressed, they should be given the right to withdraw. Especially true, if PPS has been deceived about aim/procedures.
• Debriefing

  Researchers explain to PPS in full what the aims and hypothesis were.

  Must outline any deception that was used in the reason for this.

  Ask PPS if they’re happy for their data to be used.
• Ethics committee

  Consider any ethical issues raised by all proposed research project.

  Committee consists of people from: research institution, authority, psychology, department, non-psychologists.

  They were at the costs and benefits

  Have to give approval to all proposed otherwise the plans study cannot go ahead
• cost: benefit analysis

  Research as attempt to weigh up what the ethical disadvantages are, against the benefits of the study to science and society.

  If the benefits outweigh the costs, the study is considered to be worthwhile.
• Presumptive consent

  Dealing with lack of consent or deception, by asking a group of similar people to the PPS, whether they would agree to take part in the study. If they do consent, it’s pre-assumed that the real PPS would agree.
• Operationalise

  Ensuring that variables are in a form that can be easily tested
• How can variables be operationalised?

  Questionnaire, surveys, tally charts
• Aim

  A statement of what the researcher intends to find out in a research way.

  To find out…

  To investigate…

  To research …

  To identify…
• Hypothesis

  Precise and testable statement about the assumed relationship between variables
• Alternative hypothesis


  Hypothesis for an experiment
• null hypothesis

  Statement of no relationship or no difference

  There is no difference in the…… And……
• Directional hypothesis


  Which direction the result will go in, and usually contains the words there will be…
• Nondirectional hypothesis


  Less clear of the direction. There will be a difference…
• Reliability

  Related to the consistency of a study and its findings
• External reliability

  The extent to which a measure varies from one occasion to another. By repeating the test a later date and check in by making comparisons.
• Internal reliability

  A measure of the extent which is consistent within itself. By using split half method and being consistent within itself.
• Validity

  Related to the accuracy in generalisability of a study
• External validity

  The degree to which research findings can be generalised to other situations and people. Including ecological population and historical work. Can be affected by how representative the study is.
• Internal validity

  The degree is study or test is measuring what was intended to be measured. Including concurrent and content validity.
• Content validity

  Involves looking at your method of measurements and deciding whether it measures the intended content. Can ask an independent expert to do this.
• Concurrent validity


  Involves comparing the current methods of measuring stress with a previously validated one on the same topic. PPS are given them both measurements at the same time and then their schools are compared. We would expect people to get similar schools on both measurements, thereby confirming concurrent validity.
• Structured interview


  A set of predetermined questions are created in pps are asked the same amount of questions..
• Unstructured interview


  Preset topics are considered but no questions are pre-created. Questions are generated during the interview dependent on the conversation with the PPS.
• Semi structured interview

  Combines both structured and unstructured . Interviewer might have a series of prepared questions, but will also the interview as it goes along add a new questions as information arises.
• Experimental design – independent groups


  PP is placed in different groups. Group a does task with TV on. Group B does task with TV off. Compare performance of two groups
• Experimental design – independent groups S&W


  Strength- avoids order effect – no boredom/tiredness

  Prevent PPS getting aims and altering behaviour.

  Weaknesses- researcher can’t control effects of PPS variables

  Independent groups need more PPS than repeated measures.

  Dealing with weaknesses – randomly allocate PPS conditions which distributes PPS variables evenly.

  Factor in additional time for finding more PPS
• Experimental design – repeated measures


  All PPS do the same. Each PPS does task with TV on. A week later each PPS does similar task with no TV on. Compare performance
• experimental design repeated measures – S&W


  Strength- easy, comparisons, same PP used

  Less, PP

  Weaknesses-conditions may affect performance – better second time due to practice.

  May guess purpose – change behaviour

  Dealing with weaknesses – counterbalancing, or conditions are tested first, and last

  Deceive, avoid PP guessing aim
• Experimental design matched pairs


  match PPS on key characteristics (IQ) one member from pair = group A, other member= group B. Same procedures as independent groups.
• Experimental design matched pairs – S&W

  Strengths- avoid order effect

  Prevents PPS guessing aim and altering behaviour

  Comparison more reliable than independent groups.

  Weaknesses – time consuming

  Not possible to control all PPS variables.

  Dealing with weaknesses – conduct pilot study to consider key variables, that may be important when matching
• Sampling techniques – random


  Potential PPS are identified, then selected randomly using random number generator.

  Strengths- un biased, equal chance.

  Weaknesses – takes time, likely to return an unrepresentative sample
• Sampling technique opportunity

  Recruit to most convenient/available

  Strength – easy and cheap

  Weaknesses likely to be biased and unrepresentative.