The Experimental Method

The Experimental Method

1. Ethical Issues

   • Valid Consent
   • Deception
   • Risk of Harm
   • Confidentiality
   • Privacy

2. Scientific Method

   • Observe - Explain - State Expectations - Design a Study - See f your expectations were correct

3. What will you measure?

   • The Dependent Variable (DV

4. What are your two conditions?

   • This is called the Independent Variable (IV) e.g. TV on and TV off

5. What will you expect to find?

   • This is your hypothesis (different to aims).

6. What will the participants do?

   • You worked out a set of standardised procedures.

7. What do you need to control?

   • You will have tried to control some confounding variables.

8. What is the main characteristic of an experiment?

   • There is an IV which is deliberately changed to see if there is any effect on the DV.
     • This permits us to draw causal conclusions. We can make a statement about whether the two conditions causes the result because we can compare the effect of the two levels of the IV that have been deliberately manipulated.