♥Psychological Investigations| Experiments| Key Terms♥

Hi all,

In the psychological investigation topic of Experiments there are a few Key Terms that are important for your understanding of the topic; so i will discuss them here and give you examples of what you could write for questions on these questions.

Types of Experiments

Lab Experiments- these usually take place in a highly controlled environment such as a Laboratory clearly stated by the name. Such experiments provide the researcher with high levels of control over variables however such studies do not have high ecological validity. Usually such questions are asked about the strengths and weaknesses of lab experiments ( there is a blog post on this here so you would state a weakness and a strengths and give examples for each.)

Field Experiments - These take place in the natural environment of participants however the experimenter still has some control over variables. such experiments allow to see participants natural behaviour to a certain extent however these don't give the experimenter the levels of control that are available with the lab experiments . Once again if a question is asked on Field experiments i have written a blog post here explaining all the pro's and cons of it.

Quasi Experiments are like a 'mini-experiment' of the actual study to see if the hypothesis and everything is tested and if the experimental design, participant group is working. If you think about a TV series such as Vampire Diaries or American Horror story the first episode of any series is called pilot and this is because this is seeing whether people will be interested in continuing to watch this tv programme so referring back to psychology our quasi ( it is sometimes referred to as pilot ) study is like our Pilot episode of a series of experiments.

Types of Variables

Independent Variable- This is something that the researcher manipulates

Dependent Variable is something that the researcher measures

Confounding Variables are variables which could possibly affect the dependent variables however the experimenter has some control over those  a bit like a lab where there's windows and the weather outside is rain and wind then the participants could be distracted by the events wearing outside however the researcher could if there was blinds in the experimenting room, pull them down.

Extraneous Variables are variables which could possibly affect the DV however the researcher has no control over what happens. For example if researchers where doing a study about participants levels of anxiety created by a historical events such as WW2 through viewing some images of things such as images of concentration camps, some participants may have had relatives that may have been involved in the war directly which could effect the results.

How to make sure that Your Experiment is reliable?

This is often an exam question which looks a bit like ; How can the experimenter make sure research is reliable? This is possible through replication of your study. The way your study can be replicated is if you carry it out in different areas of the city/ country and check whether there is a pattern in the trends. And also through publishing your study and allowing other psychologist to see whether your experiment works. This is made possible by writing a good procedure which is something i will be writing a blog on next.

What is Ecological Validity?

This is a term used by psychologist to explain to what extend the study/experiment/research is true to life. These can be shown by Natural Experiments which are most true to life in comparison to ones such as lab experiments.

Experimental Design

summaries of the three types of  experiments can be found here and im going to talk you through some limitations here. In Repeated measures design the participants may be subjected to Order effects this si because the same participants may go through the same condition more than once the experiments results may be influenced by actions in previous events of the condition. In Independent  Measures design the results may be created by individual differences, for example if you're doing a a study on  memory every one has a different memory capacity to others so therefore some people may be able to remember more so than others. There is also another experimental design called Counter Balancing and this is where you control effects of extraneous variables by making sure you keep all of the variables equal,. Demand Characteristics can occur in any experiment , study observation and this is where the participants think they have identified what the objective of the study is and therefore tried to behave according to what they think may have affected the study.

♥Psychological Investigations- Observations♥

Observations

Overall in psychology observations are used quite a lot. There is so many different varieties and procedures as to how you would carry out observations.

Participant Observations

♥ Participant observation can be both Overt and Covert, these are observations made by someone who is also participating in the activity which could affect the objectivity. 

♥ Overt Participant Observation is where participants are aware that you are observing them. This is a positive as it allows the researcher to gain the consent of the participants  and allows the researcher to really understand group traits and cause and effect relationships which produces rich data. However, this can create objectivity which basically mean its very much one sided as researcher is a part of the group they can't just tell us what they see from a perspective that everyone would see.

♥Covert Participant Observation is when the participants aren't aware that you're observing them. This increases reliability and validity as behaviours are more naturalistic. However social desirability may still occur and also participants did not give you their consent to be observed which creates an ethical issue ,

♥Non-Participant Observations are observations made by someone who is not participating in the activity observed. These are a positive as they allow  the observer to be very objective so all observers may get the same results which increases the observer Inter Rater Reliability (this is a way of describing how well independent observers score on the findings and  the extent to which the findings correlate - so in simpler terms how well the researchers have gathered their results and if at all there's any similarities in their findings.) Also you can record these observations which later allow you to pick out anything that you may have missed. Although NPO can be great they cant really establish a cause and effect relationship and you can also miss informations along the way.

Structured and Unstructured Observations

♥ Structured observations are ones where the researchers create a type of coding scheme to record the participants data which can collect quantitative data which is easy to analyse. Coding Schemes are ways of categorising behaviour so that you can code what you observe in order of how often a type of behaviour appears. This  type of information is a easy to carry out however as its categorised it is a restricted view and is not very in-depth so you cant find cause and effect relationships between behaviours.

♥ Unstructured Observations are ones where the researcher records all the behaviour that is observed. This type of observation can be difficult to carry out without the use of recording equipment as it is easy to miss behaviours. This type of data is difficult to analyse however it does provide rich quantitative data.

Sampling Observational Data.

♥Sometimes researchers may use a sampling technique to collect their data as it may be difficult to record everything; these techniques are Event and Time Sampling.

♥Event Sampling is where the observer records any significant behaviour that happens during the observation period, such as ticking a box every time you would see people talk in class when the teachers talking. Although behaviours should not be missed, if there is to many observations happening at once not all behaviours may be recorded.

♥ Time Sampling is where the researchers pick a set time frame in which they would record behaviours seen. This method can be problematic as researchers cant see all the behaviours happening at anyone time, which can be unrepresentative of the group being observed.

As always thank you for reading if there's anything that you would like to know in particular please let me know and do not hesitate to get in touch information is all down below.

                                                       ♥               ♥              ♥            ♥

Hi to you my Psychology Friends or people interested in psychology. Everything mentioned in this post is from the AS Psychology OCR Specification. For any more information about this course please go on to the OCR website and I Hope you enjoyed reading and revising. If you have further questions please do not hesitate to leave a comment down below or get in touch with me on twitter: @MissSweetlyNat or on Facebook: http://facebook.com/MissSweetlyNat or just type in Miss Sweetly Nat in the search bar.

Thanks

Nat♥

♥Psychological Investigations- Self Reports♥

Self- Reports.

What are they and how do we carry them out?

Self-reports are basically pieces of information collected by the researcher through the use of Questionnaires and Interviews. They can be used alone or along side studies that to find out specific information in relation to your topic of subject, 

Questionnaires can vary in the questions you ask, they can be open or closed and can also use things such as a rating scale.

Open Questions:

♥ these questions allow the participant taking the questionnaire to expand and explain the answer they gave to a question.

♥ An example of an open question would be. What is your opinion on Psychological Studies being carried out on humans?

♥A strength of an open question is that the answers are not fixed-choice answers; respondents can write what ever they want.

♥A weakness of Open Questions is that the data is harder to analyse as the data produced is Qualitative rather than Quantitative.

Closed Questions and Rating Scales

♥ these questions are often very fixed and participants usually either tick boxes or use a rating scale.

♥An Example of a Closed Question would be: Would you Consider doing a Psychology Study? Yes / No/ I Don't Know. Put a ring around one of the choices above.

♥ A strength of  closed questions is that the data collected is easy to analyse as the data collected is Quantitative,

♥ A weakness of closed questions is that respondents cant abbreviate on their answer  and also the answer can sometimes be  forced,

♥ An example of a Rating Scale. is a Likert Scale. 

♥ Work Is Successful: strongly agree [] agree [] not sure[] disagree[]  strongly disagree[]

♥ A strength of likert scales is that it allows the researcher  has an idea about how strongly the participant feels about something and therefore gives more detail than a simple yes or no.

♥ a weakness of likert scales is that  the respondents tend to respond towards the middle  to make them look less extreme.

Interviews 

♥ can also use open or closed question and can also be structured or unstructured.

♥structured interviews have pre-set questions that the interviewer asks. This allows the interview to run smoothly and the researcher gets the answers on the topics he or she wants to know the answers to.

♥unstructured/semi-structured interviews. semi structured interviews still use pre-set questions however like unstructured interviews they are more like a formal conversation about the topics you want to find the answers to as well as a more relaxed feel for the interviewee.

So, I'm just going to run through strengthens and weaknesses of questionnaires and interviews.

interviews

♥ provide large amounts of qualitative data - this enables the researcher to participants experiences, Interviews also are more likely to gain an insight of  the participants world  and also interviewers can use body language to confirm verbal responses.

♥however interviews can be hard to carry out and may be influenced by interviewer bias. Also there is difficulty in the way that the data is hard to analyse and also the interviews are very lengthy procedures and participants may still answer untruthfully.

Questionnaires 

♥record participants experiences and response rates can be high if the questionnaires are given back on the spot. questionnaires can also hold a large sample of the target population and contain topics that are difficult to talk about.

♥however often  can be influenced to bias. Questionnaires are also difficult to design well and also response rate can be low if its a postal questionnaire . sometimes the data gathered can be complex and difficult to to interpret and participants may also answer untruthfully,

Finally in any research method you will be looking at weather your research is valid and reliable,

reliability refers to how consistent something is; so for example making sure that all questions on the questionnaire and structured interview are the same for all participants. Validity refers to how accurate something is. so the main problem with validity when carrying out questionnaires is that we cant be certain on weather our participants are telling the truth which makes the results invalid.

P.S , I forgot to mention that Qualitative data is data that is rich in detail and is usually worded rather than numerical data. Quantitative data is data that can be produced into graphs so it is often data that is easily analysed and in the example of self reports usually produced by questionnaires, A good way of remembering these two things is that Qualitative data has Quality and Quantitative data has Quantity,

                                             ♥               ♥              ♥            ♥

Hi to you my Psychology Friends or people interested in psychology. Everything mentioned in this post is from the AS Psychology OCR Specification. For any more information about this course please go on to the OCR website and I Hope you enjoyed reading and revising. If you have further questions please do not hesitate to leave a comment down below or get in touch with me on twiter: @MissSweetlyNat or on Facebook: http://facebook.com/MissSweetlyNat or just type in Miss Sweetly Nat in the search bar.

Thanks

Nat♥