return to hypotheses + other things

• directional + non-directional hypothesis: we might consider the effects of lack of sleep on school performance, that is our research aim i.e. to see if lack of sleep affects school performance
• directional + non-directional hypothesis: we might propose the following hypothesis = people who have plentiful sleep (an average of 8 hours or more hours per night over a period of 1 month) have better marks in class tests that people w/ a lower sleep average (this hypothesis has been operationalised) = this hypothesis is a directional hypothesis - it states the expected direction of the results i.e. you are stating that the results are expected to go in the opposite direction
• directional + non-directional hypothesis: a non-directional hypothesis states that there is a difference between 2 conditions but does not state the direction of difference = people who have plentiful sleep (an average of 8 hours or more per night over a period of 1 month) have different marks on class tests than people w/ lower sleep average
• directional + non-directional hypothesis: we may well have a hunch that lack of sleep affects performance but have no real evidence to suggest whether this would be a positive or a negative effect
• directional + non-directional hypothesis: directional hypothesis = people who do homework w/o the TV on produce better results from those who do homework w/ the TV on
• directional + non-directional hypothesis: non-directional hypothesis = people who do homework w/ the TV on produce different results from those who do homework w/ no TV on
• which should you use: why do psychologists sometimes use a directional hypothesis instead of a non-directional hypothesis one (or vise veras)? psychologists use a directional hypothesis when past research (a theory or a study) suggests that the findings will go in a particular direction, it makes sense then to frame the hypothesis in the direction indicated
• which should you use: psychologists use a non-directional hypothesis when there is no past research or past research is contradictory, non-directional hypothesis may be more appropriate if the study is exploring a new area, where informed expectations about how people might behave have yet to be established through research
• pilot studies + the aims of piloting: did you realise that there would be flaws beforehand? or did some of the flaws become apparent during or after conducting the experiment?
• pilot studies + the aims of piloting: scientists deal w/ this problem by conducting a pilot study first, a pilot study is a smell-scale trial run of a research design before doing the real thing, it is done in order to find out if certain aspects of the design do or don't work
• pilot studies + the aims of piloting: e.g. participants may not understand the instructions or they may guess what an experiment is about, they may also get bored because there are too many tasks or too many questions
• pilot studies + the aims of piloting: if a researcher tried out the design using a few typical participants they can see what needs to be adjusted w/o having investigated a large amount of time and money in a full-scale study
• pilot studies + the aims of piloting: the results of any such pilot study are irrelevant - the researcher is not interested in what results are produced, the researcher is simply seeing to what extent the procedures need fine tuning
• confederates: sometimes a researcher has to use another person to play a role in an experiment or other investigation e.g. you might want to find out if people respond differently to orders from someone wearing a suit compared to someone dressed in casual clothes
• confederates: in this experiment the IV would be the clothing worn by a person who has been briefed to behave in a certain way by the experimenter, the experimenter would arrange for this person to giver orders either dressed in a suit or dressed casually this person is called a confederate
• confederates: Milgram's study on obedience used a confederate to play the role of the experimenter and another to play the role of the learner, in Asch's study on conformity the confederates pretended to be other participants