Control and Pilot studies

• Control:

  • tight control of variables
  • can establish a cause and effect relationship
  • Certain the IV is directly impacting the DV

  Types

  • Random allocation
  • Counterbalancing
  • Randomisation
  • Standardisation
  • Reducing demand characteristics
  • Reducing investigator effects
• Random allocation:

  Randomly assign the participants to groups by:

  • Assigning each participant a number
  • Using a random number generator to pick out a number at a time
  • Each number will place one participant in a group
  • Do this until each group is full
• Counterbalancing:

  When completing repeated measures design - participants may become fatigued or have practice - order effects

  The ABBA method cancels this out
• Randomisation:

  • Use of chance wherever possible to reduce the influence of the researcher
• Standardisation:

  Keeping everything the same like standardised instructions
• Demand characteristics:

  Social desirability bias

  Control: dont tell the participants they are being studied + deceive the participants about what/who is being studied

  
  

  Other types:

  please the experimenter - 'please U effect'

  Spoils the experiment - ' screw-U effect'
• Investigator effects:

  Cues from an investigator that encourage participants to behave in a particular way

  Control:

  • Use standardised instructions
  • Reduce interaction with the participants
  • Use random allocation
• Pilot studies:

  • Small-scale trial run to mainly check the procedure/method
  • Done in order to find out if certain things dont work or if there are any ethical issues
  • Also to check the tasks aren't too hard or too easy

  METHOD