Research methods

• What is scientific methods?

  a method of procedure that includes observation, measurement and experiment
• What is falsification?


  The act of proving a statement or theory to be false.
• What are general laws?

  Law that is unrestricted as to time
• What does nomothetic mean?

  relating to the study or discovery of general scientific laws by studying lots of people
• What is peer review?


  Evaluation of scholarly work by experts in the same field.
• What is the aim in the context of an experiment?

  A result that your plans or actions are intended to achieve
• What is an independent variable?

  The variable that is altered in an experiment
• What is a dependent variable?

  The variable that researchers measure
• What is a control variable?

  The variable that is kept the same in an experiment
• What is an extraneous variable?

  Any variable that is not being investigated but can alter the experiment’s results
• What is a confounding variable?

  Influences that interfere with the accuracy between the dependent and independent variable
• What does operationalisation refer to in research?

  Turning abstract concepts into measurable observations
• What is a hypothesis?

  A researcher’s prediction of what will happen in an experiment
• When is a directional (one-tailed) hypothesis used?

  When previous research has already been conducted in this field
• When is a non-directional (two-tailed) hypothesis used?

  When there is no previous research
• What is a null hypothesis?

  A hypothesis where there is no relationship between the variables being studied
• What are situational factors?


  Factors that can be controlled and are external to the person. They must be included
• What are dispositional factors?


  Factors that are internal to the person and cannot be easily controlled. They are used as an alternative.
• What is external validity?


  External validity is the extent to which you can generalise the findings of a study to other situations, people, settings, and measures.
• What does ecological validity measure?


  Ecological validity measures how test performance predicts behaviours in real-world settings.
• What is temporal validity?


  Temporal validity is a type of external validity that refers to the validity of the findings in relation to the progression of time.
• What is internal validity?

  if the researcher measured the results they intended to measure- not influenced by other factors or variables so needing more control
• What are the three types of extraneous variables?

  Participant variables, situational variables, experimental variable
• What are examples of participant variables?

  Sex, gender, age, marital status
• What are examples of situational variables?

  Room temperature, noise in the room
• What are experimenter variables?

  Features of the researcher that may influence the experiment e.g. their age or unconscious bias
• What are demand characteristics?

  Where a participant may change their behaviour during an experiment as they have guessed the aim
• What are demand characteristics also known as?

  Participant reactivity
• What is the Hawthorne effect?

  Guessing the purpose of the experiment and trying to please the researcher by over-performing
• What is the screw-you-effect?

  Guessing the purpose and tying to annoy the researcher by giving wrong answers
• What is social desirability bias?

  Acting unnaturally as you are worried about how you will be perceived.
• What is a single-blind procedure?

  Participant will not know which condition they are participating in
• What is investigator effects?

  The researchers features and how they might affect the participants responses. This can be reduced by double-blind procedures
• What are double-blind procedures?

  Neither the researcher or participant know which condition they will be participating
• What is randomisation?

  Use of change methods to reduce the researcher’s unconscious bias when designing an investigation
• What is standardisation?

  Procedures that are exactly the same for all participants involved
• What is a pilot study?


  A small-scale practice investigation, carried out prior to research
• What are the benefits of a pilot study?


  Reduces errors in the main study
• What is primary data?

  Data that has been collected directly by the researcher, solely for the purpose of the investigation
• What are strengths of primary data?

  More reliable and valid as the researcher has full control, more up to date