personal investigation - correlational study

Question 1

aim?

Answer 1

to see if being addicted to smartphones has a negative impact on cognitive deficits and therefore a reduction in a persons performance on troop test

Question 2

research hypothesis ?

Answer 2

there will be a positive relationship between a PT smartphone addiction score and the time it takes them to complete the conflicting troop test

Question 3

null hypothesis ?

Answer 3

there will be no relationship between PT smartphone addiction score and the time it takes them to complete the conflicting troop test

Question 4

what type of hypothesis and why ?

Answer 4

directional because previous research suggests that smartphone addiction has a negative effect on cognitive processing therefore we would expect people who have a higher score would take longer to complete

Question 5

co - variables ?

Answer 5

• scores on the smartphone addiction
• cognitive processing

Question 6

how did we measure smartphone addiction ?

Answer 6

by using a questionnaire that consisted of 10 statements on smartphone use. it was a multiple choice answer of strongly disagree, disagree, weakly agree, agree and strongly agree which was scored 1-6. the the max score was 60 (highly addicted) lowest was 10 (not addicted)

Question 7

how we measured cognitive processing ?

Answer 7

the time it took to complete the troop test, there were 25 words of conflicting colour ink, the PT names the colour of the ink

Question 8

strengths of correlational analysis in this study ?

Answer 8

• more ethical and practical way of studying whether smartphone addictions affect cognitive processing than using an experiment as it wouldn’t be ethical or practical.
• we can also rule out a casual relationship, if we find theres no relationship between SMA and ST we can say SMA does not affect cognitive processing

Question 9

weakness of correlational analysis for this study ?

Answer 9

• cannot assume that being addicted to a smartphone can cause someone to have poorer cognitive processing therefore cannot assume cause and effect. it could be a third variable present causing poor cognitive processing. this is a weakness as people tend to misinterpret cause and effect with correlational analysis.

Question 10

the 4 extraneous variables ?

Answer 10

• investigator bias
• demand characteristics
• social desirability bias
• situational bais

Question 11

investigator bias ?

Answer 11

could influence our results as this knowledge may influence our recording particularly the stroop test which reduced internal validity

Question 12

demand characteristics ?

Answer 12

if PT knew the aim of the research was to see if smartphone addiction reduced cognitive processing then they may change their answers on the SMA or performance on the stoop test to fit our aims

Question 13

social desirability bias ?

Answer 13

PT may not be completely honest about their answers to the SMA questionnaire

Question 14

situational variables ?

Answer 14

such as noise and crowding would affect results, if PT completed the questionnaire in noisy areas with friends present then they may not concentrate and compete the questionnaire properly

Question 15

dealing with investigator bias ?

Answer 15

standardised instructions and procedures were used and PT completed the questionnaire in a classroom situation in silence without interaction with researchers

Question 16

dealing with demand characteristics ?

Answer 16

we did not teak the PT the full aim of our study just that they were completing a troop test and then a questionnaire on smartphone use

Question 17

dealing with social desirability bias ?

Answer 17

with this PT were not asked for their names and total anonymity was assured. we wrote stroop test time and the questionnaire so that we could link each PT a with their SMA with their troop time

Question 18

dealing with situational variables ?

Answer 18

PT completed the questionnaire and troop test in an empty room with just 2 researchers present

Question 19

what was the location of the research ?

Answer 19

laboratory setting as we took our PT to a quiet room where only the researchers and PT were present in order to complete the SMA questionnaire and the stroop test.

Question 20

strengths of lab setting?

Answer 20

higher internal validity because we were more bale to control extraneous variables such as investigator bias and situational variables. means we were able to record time in which the troop yes was completed more accurately than in a filed or online

Question 21

weakness of lab setting ?

Answer 21

study has lower ecological validity because PT would be more aware that they were completing a research and may have been more open to demand characteristics

Question 22

target population?

Answer 22

over 16s

Question 23

sampling frame ?

Answer 23

AS psychology students from 4 classes

Question 24

what was the sample and method ?

Answer 24

45 students
- using a random sampling done by assigning numbers to students who had agreed to take part and used a random number generator to select between 10 to 12 students from each class

Question 25

characteristics of sample ?

Answer 25

- 45 AS psychology students - aged between 16-19 - from a college in NW - both female and male

Question 26

strength of sample ?

Answer 26

by using random it eliminated the chance of researcher bias compared to a different method. this would represent our sampling frame of AS psychology students and would have good population validity

Question 27

weakness of sample ?

Answer 27

- limited sampling frame of psych students which would mean we can only generalise findings to a group - random doesn't mean it is representative of different grips in sampling frame - time consuming

Question 28

first step in the procedure of the study ?

Answer 28

1. two researchers went into AS psych class to ask students if they would be willing to take part in a study involving completing a short questioner on phone use and short test on colour identification. consents from were then handed out which explained what was involved, how long it would take ensuring confidentiality and right to withdraw

Question 29

2nd , 3rd, 4th, 5th step in procedure ?

Answer 29

2 = 12 PT randomly generated out of all the people that gave consent to give us our random sample 3 = PT were taken individually to a quiet room with only the PT and two researchers present 4 = standardised instructions were read to the PT including the right to withdraw 5 = PT completed questionnaire on SPA

Question 30

6th and 7th step in procedure

Answer 30

6 = then they completed the stroop test which was faced down on the desk, timer starts and once the PT turns the test over the timer is stopped once the PT has correctly identified all the colours. time taken to complete was recorded in seconds and noted down on the questionnaire to ensure the PT results for each co variable were kept together 7 = debrief form was then handed out which explained the full aims of the research and gave the PT a chance to withdraw data it also included contacts for further information and if they were worried about their addiction to smartphone use.

Question 31

range for time taken ?

Answer 31

18 seconds

Question 32

range of scores on the smartphone addiction questionnaire ?

Answer 32

39 - good range of scores

Question 33

why did we chose the range ?

Answer 33

much quicker to calculate than standard deviation as we had a large sample of 45

Question 34

what graph was used and why ?

Answer 34

scatter graph as we were looking for a relationship between SMA and time took in stroop test in seconds - data collected were continuous data so appropriated for a scattergraph

Question 35

scatter graph shows ?

Answer 35

weak positive relationship

Question 36

what inferential statistic used ? and why ?

Answer 36

spearmint rank correlation coefficient - looking for relationship between scores and time it took - data we recorded was rime which is interval data which converted to ordinal data

Question 37

level of significant chosen ?

Answer 37

p=0.05 for a one tailed test as we had a directional hypothesis

Question 38

observed value ?

Answer 38

weak positive relationship of 0.402

Question 39

critical table value ?

Answer 39

N=45 = 0.2383

Question 40

justification for inferential statistic result ?

Answer 40

the observed value was greater than the critical table value the test was significant and we could reject the null hypothesis and accept the research hypothesis that were would be a positive relationship between score and time taken

Question 41

issues with external reliability ?

Answer 41

as different researchers were collecting the data in different AS classes any differences in the way they collected the result which would result in inconsistent results

Question 42

issue with internal reliability ?

Answer 42

one co variable was the score on SMA which consisted 10 questions, it is possible not all questions would measure SMA to the same extent.

Question 43

how to deal with potential issues of reliability ?

Answer 43

- instructions standardised so that all researchers conducted the study in exactly the same way.

Question 44

how could we have assessed reliability ?

Answer 44

test retest: if we wanted to check external reliability we could run he research again on the same same using the same procedures and questionnaire and troop test. we could have then compared both realists and if we obtained a coefficient of 0.8 or more we could say there was good external reliability

Question 45

4 issues in validity ?

Answer 45

- investigator bias - demand characteristics - social desirability bias - situational variables

Question 46

assessing validity of research ?

Answer 46

We could have used content validity to test the validity of our co-variable (score on the smartphone addiction questionnaire). We could have found an expert on addictive behaviour and asked them to look through the 10 questions on the questionnaire to rate them on how well they measured addictive behaviour. If the expert gave high ratings we could say the test had high content validity.

Question 47

ethical issues in this research ?

Answer 47

- fully informed consent - confidentiality - risk of harm

Question 48

fully informed consent ?

Answer 48

We didn’t tell participants the full aim of our study as we felt that if they knew we were looking for a relationship between smartphone addiction and cognitive processing this would affect their behaviour and answers.

Question 49

confidentiality ?

Answer 49

We didn’t tell participants the full aim of our study as we felt that if they knew we were looking for a relationship between smartphone addiction and cognitive processing this would affect their behaviour and answers.

Question 50

risk of harm?

Answer 50

Taking part in the research may have meant that participants would become more aware and anxious about the two co-variables - smartphone addiction and performance on a test that measures cognitive processing (Stroop test). This may lead to anxiety and worry.

Question 51

dealing with consent ?

Answer 51

Participants gave partial consent before the study (they kneww they would be completing a questionnaire on smartphone use and a cognitive test). At the end of the study they were given a debrief form in which the full aims of the study were explained and they were given the opportunity to withdraw their results if they were not happy with this.

Question 52

dealing with confidentiality ?

Answer 52

No names were used on the questionnaire and the scores on the stroop test were written on each participants questionnaire so both could be kept together for analysis. The results form just had participant number and their scores on the co-variables so no results could be traced to individual participants.

Question 53

dealing with risk of harm ?

Answer 53

In the consent form given before the study the participants were told that they had the right to withdraw at any time if they felt anxious when completing the SMA questionnaire or the Stroop test. In the debrief form the participants were given people they coil contact should they be concerned about either their cognitive processing skills or their smartphone addiction.