Practical Investigations

Question 1

What is an abstract?

Answer 1

A summary of the background theory/research, aims, hypothesis, method, results and discussion.

Question 2

What goes in to the introduction?

Answer 2

An overview of the related theories and related research in the topic area. Should link to the study aims and hypothesis.

Question 3

What was the introduction of the social practical investigation?

Answer 3

This study looks into how gender affcets obedience. In prior research it can be seen that there is no significant difference in levels of obedience between males and females. Both Milgram (1963) and Burger (2009) found no significant difference in obedience between gender.

Theories of obedience suggest that gender does not have an effect on obedience. The authoritarian personality theory says that it is a persons background that influences their personality and therefore obedience. This suggests obedience isn’t affected by gender. The social impact theory suggests it is the presence of an authority figure that affects obedience. Gender has no affect.

Question 4

What is the aim of the social practical investigation? What are the variables being investigated?

Answer 4

To investigate gender differences in obedience using a questionnaire

• Gender
• Level of obedience determined by score on a questionnaire

Question 5

Give the alternative and null hypotheses of the social practical investigation. Which one did we accept?

Answer 5

Alternative: There will be a significant difference in levels of obedience between males and females

Null: There will not be a significant difference in obedience levels between mles and females

We accepted our null lypothesis.

Question 6

Describe the method of the social practical investigation. Include research method, participants, sampling method, apparatus and controls.

Answer 6

Method: a written questionnaire

Participants: 5 male and 5 female participants, all students from Stourbridge aged between 16-18

Sampling method: opportunity

Apparatus: the written questionnaire containing open and cosed questions, a likurt scale and distracter questions

Controls: each participant had 10 minutes to complete it and the questions were the same, in the same order for each participant.

Question 7

Describe the procedure of the social practical investigation.

Answer 7

1. Approach participants and ask them if they’d be willing to take part
2. Explain what the research aim is and the ethics, that they have the right to withdraw etc
3. Give the participants the questionnaire to answer for themselves, allowing them only 10 minutes to complete.
4. Debrief telling them the true aim and checking for harm

Question 8

Give some quantative results of the social practical investigation.

Answer 8

Median scores for males and females is 5 and the range for both is 2. The mean score for males is 5.2 and the mean score for females is 5.8

Question 9

Give some qualitative results of the social practical investigation.

Answer 9

Q3) What is your opinion on why we have college rules?

Males answeres: for safety, depends on the situations, a positive thing

Females answered: Important, help to maintain order, depends on the situations

Question 10

What is the conclusion of the social practican investigation?

Answer 10

Based on the qualitative and quantitative data, there is no significant difference in obedience between males and females. We therefore accept our null hypothesis.

Question 11

Evaluate the social practical investigation in terms of generalisability.

Answer 11

Our sample is not very generalisable. The sample consisted of only ten participants, five in each condition and the sample was particularly narrow as the participants were all at the same sixth form and were all aged between 16 and 18. The sample is too small to generalise from and also is too narrow to be applied to other groups of society.

Question 12

Evaluate the social practical investigation in terms of reliability.

Answer 12

There was a standardised procedure with standardised questions and instructions. Each participant was given the same questions to answer and instructed that they would have ten minutes to complete it. This meant that the study is repeatable to gain similar results.

Inter-rater reliability can be established as 3 researchers all agreed on the thematic analysis together. This reduces the researcher bias and reliability.

Question 13

Evaluate the social practical investigation in terms of validity.

Answer 13

Open questions were used. This allows for a greater depth and level of detail to be found. Therefore the analysis is more detailed and valid.

Could be seen to lack validity. Due to the research method being a questionnaire, there is a risk of socail desireability bias.

Question 14

Evaluate the social practical investigation in terms of ethics.

Answer 14

Informed consent, debrief and right to withdraw.

Confidentiality as no personla details or names were collected.

Question 15

What was the introduction of the cognitive practical investigation?

Answer 15

The topic area is memory. Memory is regarded as the mental function of retaining information about stimuli, events, images, ideas etc after the original stimuli is no longer present.

The multi-store model of memory has three main componants; sensory information, short term memory and long term memory. It states that information must flow through these stages in order.

Glanzar and Cunitz (1966) gave participants a list of words that they were asked to recall either immediately or delayed. They found that the delayed group only remembered the words at the end of the list due to displacement. Primacy and recency effect.

Peterson and Peterson found that if reharsal is prevented over 30 seconds, information will be forgotten.

Question 16

What is the aim of the cognitive practical investigation? What are the variables being investigated?

Answer 16

To investigate how in the multi-store model of memory, rehearsal is important for the transfer of information from STM to LTM.

• (IV) Amount of reheasal- in one condition, the participants will be shown the words for two minutes, show again for two minutes making them read outloud. In the second condition the reading is replaced by simple maths sums.
• (DV) Memory recall- score on the number of words correctly remembered.

Question 17

Give the alternative and null hypotheses of the cognitive practical investigation.

Answer 17

Alternative: There will be significantly more words recalled when rehearsal is allowed then when word rehearsal is prevented.

Null: there will be no significant difference in umber of words recalled when rehearsal is allowed then when rehearsal is prevented. Any differences will be due to chance.

Question 18

Describe the method of the social practical investigation. Include research method, participants, sampling method, apparatus and controls.

Answer 18

Research method: repeated measures

Participants: 16 students aged 16-18

Sampling method: opportunity

Apparatus: two different word lists, a sheet of maths sums, a stopwatch, paper and a pen.

Controls: If they are psychology students or not, recieve the same instructions, ensure that the environment isn’t too noisy.

Question 19

Describe the procedure of the cognitive practical investigation.

Answer 19

Participants will first complete the experimental condition. They will ge given word list 1 to look at for two minutes. The list will then be taken away momentarily whilst we explain that now we are going to encourage them to rehearse. We then give the list back and ask them to read the word list out loud for 2 minutes. They are then asked to write the words down in any order.

They then complete the control condition. Word list 2 is presented for 2 minutes before being removed. We then ask the participants a series of simple maths sums which they must answer correctly before moving on to the next question. They must then try to write down the words as before.

Question 20

Give some quantative results of the social practical investigation.

Answer 20

The mean number of words remembered in the rehearsal condition was 10 out of 15. The mean number of words remembered in the no-rehearsal condition was 6 out of 15.

Question 21

Evaluate the cognitive practical investigation in terms of generalisability.

Answer 21

Our sample is not very generalisable. The sample consisted of only 16 participants and the sample was particularly narrow as the participants were all at the same sixth form and were all aged between 16 and 18. The sample is too small to generalise from and also is too narrow to be applied to other groups of society.

Question 22

Evaluate the cognitive practical investigation in terms of reliability.

Answer 22

There was a standardised procedure with standardised questions and instructions. Each participant was given the same two word lists to learn and the same amount of time to complete it. This meant that the study is repeatable to gain similar results.

Question 23

Evaluate the cognitive practical investigation in terms of validity.

Answer 23

Quantitative data was collected which is less subjective and more scientific. Also, many extraneous variables were controlled for. This helps to establish a cause and effect relationship

Question 24

Evaluate the cognitive practical investigation in terms of ethics.

Answer 24

The word lists didn’t contain anything that could be interpreted as offensive. The maths sums are simple to prevent distress. We obtained consent before starting and ensured that the particippants were made aware of their right to withdraw.

Question 25

What was the introduction of the biological practical investigation?

Answer 25

Aggression is defined as harming oneself, others or an object in response to pain, intimidation or fear. It is generally accepted that men are more aggressive than women; it could be that aggression is at least partly the result of testosterone. Raine found taht 5% of males are characterised by a pattern of anti-social behaviour and these men are said to complete 50-70% of all violent crime.

Kalat (1998) reported that in 15 to 25 year old men, those with the highest levels of circulating testosterone also showed the higest levels of aggressive behaviour, as measured by crime statistics. In animals, castrated males fight least which supports this.

Question 26

What is the aim of the biological practical investigation?

Answer 26

To investigate whether there is a positive correlation between masculinity and aggression traits

Question 27

Give the alternative and null hypotheses of the biological practical investigation.

Answer 27

Alternative: There will be a significant correlation between scores of aggression and scores of masculinity on a questionnaire

Null: There will be no significant difference between scores of aggression and scores of masculinity on a questionnaire. Any difference will be due to change.

Question 28

What are the variables being investigated in the biological practical investigation?

Answer 28

Co-variable 1- Masculinity scale

An adaptation of the personal attributes questionnaire.

This is valid and reliable as it has been previously used.

Co-variable 2- Aggression scale

Bussy-Perry Aggression Scale (1992)

This is highly standardised and valid.

Question 29

Describe the method of the biological practical investigation. Include research method, participants, sampling method, apparatus and controls.

Answer 29

Research method: Questionnaire

Particpiants and sampling method: Opportunity sample of students aged 16-18

Apparatus: Questionnaires

Controls: Completed in isolation from friends in order to avoid social desireability bias, reverse scoring in order to avoid response bias, distracter questions to reduce demand characteristics and a standardised scoring system

Question 30

Give some quantative results of the biological practical investigation.

Answer 30

Spearmans Rho. Observed value of 0.557, critical value of 0.389.

Question 31

Evaluate the biological practical investigation in terms of generalisability.

Answer 31

Low in generalisability. The sample size was very small of 19 participants and as they were all students at the same college aged 16-18 the sample can be seen to be narrow. This limits the generalisability to the wider population.

Question 32

Evaluate the biological practical investigation in terms of reliability.

Answer 32

High in reliability. The questionnaires used were standardised and the experiment followed a rigid procedure. Furthermore, there was also a standardised method for analysis.

We found a significant result that supports previous research. This also provides reliability.

Question 33

Evaluate the biological practical investigation in terms of applications.

Answer 33

Has an implication of being seen as deterministic. ‘you have testosterone so you will be aggressive’

Question 34

Evaluate the biological practical investigation in terms of validity.

Answer 34

Low in validity. It is only correlational and so as a result it is not possible to say that one factor directly causes the other.

There could be issues with social desireabiity bias however the use of reverse scoring and distracter questions should help to minimise that.

Question 35

What was the introduction of the learning practical investigation?

Answer 35

Social learning theory can be used to explain gender differences in society, including how we learn gender-appropriate behaviours. Role models encourage these behaviours. Operant conditioning can aslo explain how we learn these gender roles. Girls get praised for bring quiet and working hard whist boys get punished for showing ‘girl’ traits.

Leslie, Snyder and Glomb (2013) found that women donated more money to charity than men. Eagly (2009) found that although males and females are equal likely to engage in prosocial behaviours, they are likely to do so for different reasons.

Question 36

What is the aim of the learning practical investigation?

Answer 36

To investigate gender differences in helping behaviour with regards to holding the door open for another person.

Question 37

Give the alternative and null hypotheses of the learning practical investigation.

Answer 37

Alternative: There will be a significant diference between the number of times the door is held open by males and the number of times the door is held open by females

Null: There will be no significant difference between the number of times the door is held open by males and the number of times the door is held open by females. Any difference will be due to chance.

Question 38

Describe the method of the cognitive practical investigation. Include research method, participants, sampling method and apparatus.

Answer 38

Method: naturalistic, covert observation

Participants: 9 males and 9 females

Sampling method: opportunity

Apparatus: a tally table for male female and the door holding behaviour.

Question 39

Describe the pilot study for the learning practical investigation.

Answer 39

Walked around the area to determine where to do the observation from. We did a practice sample to ensure reliability. We operationalised exactly what was meant by holding the door open

Question 40

Describe the procedure of the learning practical investigation.

Answer 40

We decided to carry out our observation at 11:00am to 11:30am at the back gate to college. Created a tally chart for the number of helping behaviours we observed.

Question 41

Give the results (descriptive statistics and thematic analysis) of the learning practical investigation.

Answer 41

7 males did hold the door, 6 females did hold the door.

It was found that males mostly held the gate open for females and vice versa. The door was held open if the participants weren’t in a rush or carrying lots of things which meant that they physically couldn’t. The distance the other person was from the gate was also a big factor.

Question 42

Give the results (inferential statistics) of the learning practical investigation.

Answer 42

We used the Chi-squared test. The observed value was found to be 0.28. The critical value was 3.84. Therefore, as our result is lower than the observed value our results were not significant.

Question 43

Evaluate the learning practical investigation in terms of generalisability.

Answer 43

Low in generalisability as we only looked at one very specific helping behaviour. Also, we only observed at one time of day at one gate in the college. The sample was small and narrow.

Therefore the findings can’t be applieed to others such as older members of the community. There’s a possibility all those participants might have been similar in some way.

Question 44

Evaluate the learning practical investigation in terms of reliability.

Answer 44

Inter-rater reliability is good. We worked in small groups when conducting the thematic analysis. This makes it less subjective as we all had to agree on the data.

We followed a standardised procedure. We specified which door we were going to watch, at what time of day and what counted as holding the door.

Question 45

Evaluate the learning practical investigation in terms of validity.

Answer 45

High in ecological validity as the observations took place at the back gate of college which is an everyday setting of he participants.

High in mundane realism as the task reflected real life.

Low in validity. As it was a naturalistic covert observation, there were lots of extraneous variables that couldn’t be controlled

Question 46

Evaluate the learning practical investigation in terms of ethics.

Answer 46

No consent. It was a covert observation and without this we wouldn’t have gained valid results.

No debrief

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