EASY EVALUATION POINTS

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Student samples: Age bias, lack generalisation to wider population.

Laboratory studies: Lack ecological validity due to artificial settings, demand characteristic’s possible as participants know they are being observed, lack external validity if the setup can not be applied to the real world. Strengths however: Easy to replicate and check reliability, more control over the experiment to measure the effect of the DV and limit extraneous variables from affecting results.

Lack of internal validity: Anything that suggests you are not measuring what you want to measure can be argued to affect the results as they lack internal validity. This could include personality variables or confounding variables that are actually affecting the results and not the DV (dependent variable)

Lack of mundane realism: Do the tasks lack realism? If they are not indicative of real world situations then lack of mundane realism can be used as a criticism. For example a lot of research into the memory models were not really testing how memory is used in everyday life.

Gender bias: Only men or women involved? The findings may suffer from gender bias if they can not be applied across both genders. Was age a factor perhaps? What is the implication on the theory/point if this is a factor?

Cultural bias: Is the study based on the values of one country? Is it based only in one country without considering others and how they may differ? Then you can argue cultural bias.

Correlational research: A lot of research is correlational and this can be used as a weakness e.g. people who are more violent play a lot of video games. Someone may argue that video games therefore cause basis of your argument for correlational research because you cannot establish cause and effect; just because two things are linked, it doesn’t mean one is causing the other and there could be a third variable involved.

Case studies: You can’t generalise the findings based on one case study; this may be due to individual differences, personality variables, upbringing, culture etc (this is a weakness then). Case studies do however provide lots of information or allow you to study something that may normally be difficult or you are unable to recreate in the laboratory which is a strength.

Longitudinal studies: Allow you to see how a variable can affect people over time (strength) however outside influences may even factor in (also known as extraneous variables).

Animal studies: You can generalise the findings of animals to humans due to differences in anatomy (weakness) – Animal studies however allow you to draw theories and conduct research which would be unethical to conduct on humans. The harm caused to animals however will always raise ethical issues which you can highlight.

Link-Back: Using evaluative comments to highlight what the impact is on the theory commenting on how it is either supported or undermined. If there is other concerns this raises then highlight these to score evaluative commentary marks. You can also use issues, debates and approaches too so throw them in where they are appropriate.