Research Methods Flashcards
What is content analysis in psychology?
A research method that converts qualitative data into quantitative data by coding recurring words, behaviours, or categories. Used for analysing media, transcripts, or open-ended survey responses.
✅ Markscheme tip: Include that it’s systematic, involves creating coding units, and may use frequency counts.
✅ Markscheme tip: Mention that the coding system must be consistent and categories should be clearly defined before coding.
What is thematic analysis in psychology?
A qualitative method involving identifying, analysing, and interpreting patterns (themes) in data. Themes capture something important about the data in relation to the research question.
✅ Markscheme tip: Make clear that themes go beyond surface frequency and reflect meaning.
Group codes into broader themes/✅ Markscheme tip: Include interpretation and iteration – that themes may evolve.
Explain why thematic analysis may be more appropriate than content analysis in studying emotional responses.
Because emotions are subjective and complex, thematic analysis allows for exploration of underlying meanings and patterns, rather than just counting frequency (as in content analysis), which may miss nuance.
✅ Markscheme tip: Justify the method in relation to the research aim – in this case, understanding meaning over frequency.
What is one strength and one limitation of using content analysis?
Strength: Reduces large amounts of data to manageable patterns and allows quantification.
❌ Limitation: May oversimplify complex data by ignoring context and meaning.
✅ Markscheme tip: For full marks, evaluate the method not just describe it.
What is one strength and one limitation of using thematic analysis in psychology?
Strength: Flexible and useful for exploring complex, rich qualitative data. Helps identify meaningful patterns without reducing responses to numbers. Can generate new insights and hypotheses.
❌ Limitation: Subjectivity in identifying and interpreting themes. Different researchers may find different themes, reducing inter-rater reliability. Also time-consuming.
📝 Markscheme tip: For AO3 questions, make sure to explain the implication of the strength/limitation (e.g., “time-consuming” → harder to replicate = lower reliability).
What are demand characteristics, and how can they be controlled?
When participants guess the aim and alter behaviour.
Controlled via deception, filler tasks, or single-blind procedures where participants don’t know the condition they are in.
What is meant by operationalisation, and why is it important?
Operationalisation means defining variables in measurable, specific terms (e.g. aggression = number of punches).
It’s important to allow replication and to measure behaviour accurately and objectively.
What is the difference between a Type I and a Type II error in statistical testing?
Type I Error (False Positive): Rejecting the null hypothesis when it’s actually true.
Type II Error (False Negative): Accepting the null hypothesis when it’s actually false.
✅ Markscheme tip: Use the term “null hypothesis” clearly and correctly. Can be asked in context of significance level.
Describe how a psychologist could obtain a stratified sample. (4 marks)
Identify key strata (subgroups) in the target population (e.g. age, gender).
Calculate the proportion of each stratum in the population.
Randomly select participants from each stratum in proportion to the population.
✅ Markscheme tip: Must mention random selection within strata for full marks.
Explain the difference between internal and external validity.
Internal validity: The extent to which the study measures what it intends to—free from confounding variables.
External validity: The extent to which findings can be generalised to other settings (ecological), people (population), or times (temporal).
Markscheme tip: Use the phrase “generalise to other…” when describing external validity.
What is counterbalancing, and why is it used in repeated measures designs?
Counterbalancing involves splitting participants into two groups where each group completes conditions in a different order (AB or BA).
It controls for order effects (practice, fatigue) which can confound results in repeated measures designs.
Explain two ways to assess the reliability of a psychological test or questionnaire. (4 marks)
Test-retest reliability: Administering the same test to the same participants on two occasions and checking for consistency via correlation (ideally r > 0.8).
Inter-rater reliability: Two observers rate the same behaviour and calculate correlation or % agreement to assess consistency.
✅ Markscheme tip: Define the method + include a way to measure consistency (e.g., correlation or agreement).
What is a pilot study, and why is it used in psychological research?
Pilot study is a small-scale trial run of a study, conducted before the main research. It tests the effectiveness of materials, clarity of instructions, timing, and identifies flaws in the procedure.
✅ Markscheme tip: Always mention it improves validity and reliability by identifying potential confounding variables or misunderstandings.
Explain how a psychologist might improve the reliability of observations in a study. (4 marks)
Use a structured observation with a clear behavioural checklist so all observers are looking for the same behaviours.
Train the observers thoroughly beforehand.
Conduct a pilot study to refine the checklist.
Check inter-observer reliability by comparing results and calculating correlations.
📝 Markscheme tip: Include procedural detail and key terms like inter-observer reliability
A psychologist wants to ensure high internal validity in their experiment. Explain two ways they could do this. (4 marks)
Control extraneous variables – keeping the environment, instructions, and stimuli consistent for all participants.
Use standardised procedures – ensure all participants receive the same experience.
✅ This reduces confounding variables and ensures any change in the DV is due to the IV.
📝 Markscheme tip: Explain how each method links to internal validity, not just what it is.
Explain why a psychologist might choose to use random sampling. (3 marks)
Random sampling gives every member of the target population an equal chance of being selected.
✅ This reduces sampling bias and increases the representativeness of the sample.
✅ Findings can be more easily generalised to the target population.
📝 Markscheme tip: Link to reduced bias, generalisability, and target population.
Describe and explain how the mean can be misleading in a psychological investigation. (4 marks)
If there are extreme scores (outliers) in a dataset, the mean is distorted.
✅ This may not accurately reflect the ‘typical’ value.
E.g. If most scores are low but one is very high, the mean will be pulled upwards.
✅ A better measure might be the median, which is less affected by outliers.
📝 Markscheme tip: Apply your explanation with an example and justify why it’s misleading.
A researcher conducts a correlational study on anxiety and sleep. Explain one reason why they should not infer cause and effect.
Correlation only shows an association, not causation.
✅ There may be a third variable (e.g., workload) influencing both anxiety and sleep.
✅ Without experimental control, we cannot rule out alternative explanations.
📝 Markscheme tip: Must mention no manipulation of IV and possibility of confounding variables.
Explain why a repeated measures design may not be appropriate and how to overcome this. (4 marks)
Repeated measures can lead to order effects (e.g. fatigue or practice).
Counterbalancing (e.g. AB/BA) controls for this by varying the order of conditions.
Counterbalancing ensures order effects are distributed equally across both conditions.
📝 Markscheme tip: Must name the problem (order effects) and the solution (counterbalancing) to score full marks.
A researcher wants to use a questionnaire to investigate stress in students. Explain one way the researcher could ensure the questionnaire has high validity. (3 marks)
Ensure face validity by checking with experts that the questions appear to measure stress.
✅ Or use concurrent validity: compare responses to those from an established and validated stress scale.
✅ Remove ambiguous, leading, or double-barrelled questions to ensure the construct is measured
A study found a significant result with p ≤ 0.05. What does this mean?
✅ There is a 5% or less probability that the result occurred by chance.
✅ The researcher has rejected the null hypothesis.
✅ The finding is statistically significant, meaning it’s unlikely due to random error.
📝 Markscheme tip: Must explain what p ≤ 0.05 tells us in terms of probability and decision-making.
A researcher calculates the mean and standard deviation of a set of scores. What do these tell us? (4 marks)
The mean shows the average score – central tendency.
✅ The standard deviation shows how spread out the scores are around the mean – variability.
✅ Low SD = scores are tightly clustered; High SD = scores are more spread.
📝 Markscheme tip: You must explain what each measure tells us about the data, not just define them.
A psychologist finds a correlation of +0.8 between anxiety and number of hours spent revising. What does this mean? (2 marks)
There is a strong positive correlation: as anxiety increases, revision hours increase.
✅ It suggests a relationship but not causality.
📝 Markscheme tip: Include direction and strength, and do not claim one causes the other.
Describe one way a psychologist could operationalise aggression in a playground observation. (2 marks)
Define aggression clearly and measurably – e.g. “number of times a child hits or pushes another within a 10-minute period.”
✅ Ensure behaviours are observable and countable.
📝 Markscheme tip: Students often define aggression too vaguely – it must be measurable.
