Paper 2: Research Methods Flashcards
Revise
What are the 4 types of studies?
Experiments
Self-reporting
Observation
Case Studies
What are the 3 experimental designs?
Independent groups
Repeated measures
Matched pairs
What are the two settings research can be conducted in?
Field studies
Lab studies
What’s the difference between a natural and quasi experiment?
Quasi experiment refers to a variable that can’t be changed eg Gender
Natural can be changed eg a law
What important experiment used the observational technique?
Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment
What are behavioural catagories?
A way to prioritise which behaviours are recorded and ensure consistency in different observers. Use inter-rater reliability.
Whats event sampling and what’s time sampling?
Event sampling is counting how many times an action is performed.
Time sampling is recording a participant in time intervals
What are naturalistic and controlled observations?
Naturalistic, observations made in a controlled setting.
Controlled, observations made in an artificial setting
Participant and non-participant?
When the researcher is involved in some capacity in the study or not.
What are the two types of the self-report method?
Questionnaire and interview
What are the two types of questionnaire questions?
Closed and open
What the difference between structure and unstructured interviews?
Structured, questions are standardised and pre-set
Unstructured, the interviewer just discusses a topic
What’s a longitudinal case study?
Done over an extended period, checking in with the subject at several intervals over long periods of time.
What are the features of a study?
Has an aim.
Has a hypothesis.
Must find a sample to represent the group they’re studying.
What are the 3 types of samples?
Random sampling, selecting participants at random.
Systematic sampling, selecting in intervals.
Stratified sampling, dividing the population into relevant groups and building a sample from that.
What are the two main variables?
Dependant and independent variables.
Whats the difference between extraneous and confounding variables?
Experimenters must control extraneous variables,if they end up affecting the findings then they’re labelled confounding variables.
What’s the operationalisation of variables?
Making an abstract variable, eg sleep, into something measurable and define it further.
What is the purpose of a pilot study?
To identify any flaws in the study at a lower cost before the main study starts.
What are the 3 options of peer review?
Open review, all researchers and reviewers are know to each other.
Single blind, the researchers don’t know the reviewers.
Double blind, both groups are unaware of each other.
What are the 4 main ethical concerns of all studies?
All participants have given valid consent in someway, including being made aware of the right to withdraw.
Deception, the participants shouldn’t be deceived. However it is sometimes is essential to the research being carried out, eg Asch and therefore can get retrospective consent, presumptive consent or prior general consent.
Confidentiality, personal information should not be disclosed.
Debriefing, all participants must be debriefed after the study.
Definition of reliability?
Something is consistently replicated under the same circumstances.
What’s test-retest?
Test-retest is when you give the same test to the same person on two different occasions. If the results are the same or similar both times, this suggests they are reliable.
What’s inter-rater reliability?
Having two observers give similar results, can be mathematically observed.
