Control Issues Flashcards
What is counterbalancing?
Where the experimenter alternates the conditions for each participant to try and minimise order effects
What are order effects?
Occur when participants do more than one condition in a study and they all do the conditions in the same order
Order effects include practice and fatigue
What are experimenter effects?
Things about the experimenter that affect the results, rather than the change in the IV
e.g. gender of experimenter, age
What is social desirability?
Where participants provide answers they think the research is looking for and is socially acceptable
What is operationalisation?
To define a variable precisely and make it measurable
What are participant variables?
Extraneous variables that relate to the participant
e.g. age, gender
What are situational variables?
Extraneous variables relating to the environment
e.g. noise, lighting, temperature
