Experimental method Flashcards
Variables, aims and hypothesis
What is an Independent Variable
The thing we change in our research e.g. depression levels
What a dependent variable
What we are measuring in our research e.g. iq levels
What is Operationalising a variable
Adding more detail into the variables
Example of operationalising a variable
Instead of an older adult we would say individuals aged 60 years old or more
What’s the iv and dv in this example- A researcher give a sudoku puzzle to a participant after one unit of alcohol, 5 units and 10 units. Researcher times the amount of time it takes to do puzzle
IV- amount of alcohol participants ingested
DV- The amount of time taken to complete sudoku puzzles
Whats extraneous variables
Variables affecting the DV if not controlled
Examples of extraneous variable?
Weather, temperate, outside noise
What’s confounding variables?
variables that may affect your dv that vary systematically with the iv, so dont always affect participants in the same way
Example of confounding variables?
How much sleep p’d have had the night before
What’s an aim
An overview of what the participant wants to investigate
An example of an aim
the effect of alcohol on memory loss
Whats a hypotheses
A clear and testable statement making a prediction about what will happen in a piece of research
what are the 3 components of hypothesis
Relationship + DV (operationalised) + 2 levels of IV
What’s the alternative hypothesis
makes a prediction
2 types directional and non directional
What’s a directional hypothesis (one tailed)
States the way the relationship will go
e.g. their will be an increase in test scores when participant spends 20 hours on revision a week vs those who don’t
