MOBILE PHONE USAGE

• Independent Variable


  Alone or Presence of others in college canteen
• Dependent Variable


  Duration of Phone Usage
• IV Operationalisation


  In the College canteen during Lunchtime alone or in the presence of one or More people
• DV Operationalisation


  Duration of Engagement with Mobile Phone
• Justification for directional hypothesis
• Research Method


  Non-Participant Observation
• Strengths of Research Method


  • Naturalistic observation can provide a useful check on whether experimental findings apply outside the laboratory
  • Avoidance of demand characteristics - behaviour is not affected by anxiety which occurs in lab experiments. Participants will not be playing up to the observer if he remains undisclosed
• Limitations of Research Method


  • Lack of control over confounding variables
  • Ethical issues - if people are unaware of the observation then the observer is breeching ethical issues such as deception and invasion of privacy
• Research Design


  Independent group Design
• Strengths of Research Design

  • No problem with order effects
• Weaknesses of Research Design


  • Potential for error resulting from individual differences between the groups
  • No controls being used
• Sampling Method


  Opportunity Sampling
• Strengths of Sampling Technique


  • Easy in terms of time and therefore money
  • Takes away researcher bias as we are unable to select participants to fit the purpose of the experiment
• Weaknesses of Sampling Technique


  • Can produce a biassed sample as it is easy for the researcher to choose people from their own social and cultural group
  • Participants may decline to take part and your sampling technique may turn into a self-selected sample
• Assessing Reliability


  1. Use Inter-observer/rater reliability

  2. Train observers in the use of checklist so they understand the operational definition of "phone usage"
• Assessing Validity


  Deal with observer effect leading to Demand Characteristics by improving the design of the experiment and standing in the corner to avoid being noticed by the participant
• Procedure


  1. Decided on aim, wrote alt and null hypothesis

  2. Fully operationalised IV and DV

  3. Randomly selected a person alone and watched them for 7 minutes, recording duration of phone use

  4. Repeated for a group of 2 or more

  5. Recorded results for 10 people alone and 10 in a group

  6. Calculated mean scores

  7. Inputted scores into Mann Whitney U test and calculated significance
• Descriptive Statistics


  Calculate the mean of time spent on phone within each condition (alone or within a group)
• Justification for descriptive statistics

  The mean provides a measure of central tendency and represents the average time of phone usage within each condition.
• Graphical Representation

  Bar Chart
• Justification for graphical representation

  allows for easy comparison of 2 means to see if there is difference between the two conditions of sitting alone or with someone.
• Inferential Statistical Test


  Mann Whitney U test
• Justification for inferential statistical test

  looking for difference // independent group design used // ratio data so simplified to Nominal
• Summary of Findings

  Descriptive Statistics

  • Mean alone : 337.9
  • Mean for group : 202.1

  
  

  Graphical representation

  • Bar Chart

  
  

  Inferential Statistics

  • Critical Value : 27
  • Observed Value : 2
• Ethical Issues Identified

  VALID CONSENT//RIGHT TO WITHDRAW
• How Ethical Issues were Dealt With

  valid consent this was dealt with by us debriefing the student on what occurred giving them a chance to withdraw their inclusion of data
• Ways to Improve Research

  • repeat over several days to have more generalised results improving our reliability

  
  

  • use a bigger sample to be more reflective of the entire population

  
  

  • watch for a longer time to improve reliability and validity of results ensure that it is reflective of everyday life