Research Methods

• What is a correlational co-efficient?

  Number between -1 and 1 that expresses strength of relationship
• Pros of choosing an interview compared to a questionnaire

  • More personal
  • Avoids ambiguity and misunderstanding
  • Participants have to answer everything
  • Flexibility (if unstructured)
  • Can assess depth of feeling from body language, mood etc.
  • Higher quantity of people
  • Less pressure for participants
• Cons of choosing an interview compared to a questionnaire

  • Interviewer effects
  • Social desirability bias
  • Participants may not have verbal skills to explain how they are feeling
  • Time consuming
  • Expensive
  • Hard to replicate
  • Amount of info written may not be enough
  • May not have what participant wants to write down
• What are the self report techniques?

  • Questionaires
  • Surveys
  • Interview
• In order to achieve inter-observer reliability what must researchers do?

  • Familiarise themselves with behavioural catagories
  • Observe behaviour at the same time
  • Compare data they recorded and discuss differences
  • Analyse data from study and correlate each pair of observations made.
• What is inter-observer reliability?

  Observations that are carried out by at least two researchers. It's vital that they must be consistant.
• What is participant observation?

  Observer becomes part of the group they are studying
• What is an overt observation?

  Participants know their behaviour is being observed and have given informed consent beforehand.
• Describe a quasi-experiment

  • Any experiment where a normal feature of the scientific process is missing.
  • Can be like any other experiment.
• Describe a laboratory experiment

  Controlled environment

  IV is manipulated by the researcher

  Examples include; Loftus and Jacobs, Beevers, Pavlov, Bandura
• Evaluation of quantitative data

  • Simple to analyse
  • Comaprisons easily drawn
  • More objective and less open to bias
  • However, fail to represent in real life.
• Evaluation of qualitative dataz

  • More richness of detail
  • Gives participant develop thoughts and feelings
  • External validity
• Confidentiality

  • People have a right to remain anonymous
  • Follow BPS code of conduct
• Right To Withdraw

  • People cannot be coerced into taking part in research
  • Dealt by reminding them
• Deception

  • People have aright to assume they are told the truth and not misled
  • Its dealt by follwoing BPS code of conduct
• Informed consent

  • Pts should have all the info they need to make a decision about whether to take part.
  • If they are not told - lose trust in science and authority
  • Its dealt by signing a contract
• What is concurrent validity?

  Comparing results against another previously validated measure
• What is face validity?

  Asking an expert in the field whether the experiments appears to measure the right thing
• Improving reliability

  • Use a pilot study
  • Standardisation
  • Check data
  • Inter-rater observability
• What can reliability be assessed by?

  • Test-retest method - experiments
  • Split-half test - questionnaires
  • Alternate test
• Pilot Study

  Trial run of experiment to make sure everything works and to iron out any problems.
• Randomisation

  Both conditions have to have the same difficulty
• Counterbalancing

  Half pts do one condition and other half do second condition first
• Order effects

  Results can be affected when an activity is repeated by fatigue or practice
• Standardisation

  Making the experience of every pts the same
• Matched Pairs

  Use diff pts but matches them on any characteristcs which could be important to the study

  • Advantages:
  • No order effects
  • Reduced group variables
  • Disadvantages:
  • Matching is difficult
  • Time consuming
  • Demand characteristics
• Independent Groups

  Diff pts for each condition. Should be randomly allocated

  • Advantages:
  • No order effects
  • Reduced demand characteristics
  • Disadvantages:
  • Need more participants
  • Group differences - creates confounding variables
• Repeated Measures


  Uses same pts in each condition

  • Advantages:
  • No group differences
  • Fewer pts needed
  • Disadvantages:
  • Order effects which can be controlled by counter-balacing
  • Demand characteristics
  • Time consuming
• Volunteer Sampling

  Using those who respond to an advert.

  • Advantages:
  • Cheap
  • No problems with refusal of consent
  • Disadvantages:
  • Volunteer bias - pts more motivated because they have interest in the subject or more helpful personality
  • Demand characteristics
• Opportunity Sampling

  Pts who happen to be available and are willing to take part

  • Advantages:
  • Convenient
  • Quick
  • Easy
  • Cheap
  • Disadvantages:
  • Not representative so not able to be generalised
• Stratified Sampling

  Divides target population into sub categories (strata). Pts then selected in proportion to their occurance in the target population.

  • Advantages:
  • Representative
  • Less researcher bias
  • Generalisation is easier
  • Disadvantages:
  • Difficult
  • Time consuming
• Systematic Sampling


  Participants selected using an ordered frame. 1st participant randomly selected and then every nth person selected

  • Advantages:
  • Low chance of researcher bias
  • Representive
  • Disadvantages:
  • Needs degree of randomness
  • Degree of bias
• Random Sampling


  Everyone has equal chance of being selected

  • Advantages:
  • Representative of target population
  • Reduced chnce of researcher bias
  • Disadvantages:
  • Basic details
  • Time consuming
• Disadvantages of correlational analysis

  • Cannot make causal link
  • Only suitable for linear relationships
• Advantages of correlational analysis

  • Allows predictions to be made
  • Allows strength and direction of a relationship to be quantified
• Advantages of case studies

  • Rich data which other methods may overlook
  • Gets at the essence of human experience
  • Can be used to show consequences of rare experiences - could not ethically create these conditions in experiments e.g Josef Fritzl
  • Can challenge existing theory - improves knowledge
• What must questions avoid?

  • Jargon
  • Leading questions
  • Vagueness
  • Ambiguity
  • Assumptions
  • Emotive language
  • Double-barelled questions
• What is a covert observation?

  sRecording behaviour without obtaining consent of the participants and the participants are unaware they are the focus.
• What is a naturalistic observation?

  Observation takes place in the setting or context where target behaviour would usually occur.
• What are the main types of experiment?

  • Laboratory Experiments
  • Field Experiments
  • Natural Experiments
  • Quasi-experiments