Psychology - Research methods revision

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Validity

The term, 'validity,' refers to how true/legitimate something is as an explanation of behaviour. It involves the issues of control/realism/generalisability.

Key terms:

- Internal validity is whether the study has tested what it sets out it sets out to test/the degree to which the observed effect was due to the experimental manipulation rather than other factors such as the extraneous variables.

- External validity is the degree to which research finding can be generalised to other settings (ecological validity)/to other groups of people (population validity)/over time (historical validity).

- Control refers to the extent to which any variable is held constant or regulated by a researcher.

- Mundane realsim refers to how a study mirrors the real world. The simulated task environment is realistic to the degree to which experiences encountered in the environment will occur in the real world.

Internal validity concerns what goes on inside a study. It is concerned with things such as:

- Whether the independent variable produced the change in the dependent variable.

- Whether the researcher tested what he or she intended to test.

- Whether the study possessed mundane realism.

External validity is affected by internal validity as it is not possible to generalise the results of an experiment if the internal reliability was low as the results have no real meaning for the behaviour in question. It concerns the ability to generalise the results of the study to:

- Different places or settings.

- Different people or populations.

- Different times.

Realism

The aim of any psychological study is to provide information about how many people behave in real life. This means that if the study set up is too artificial or controversial then the participant may not act in the same way as they would normally.

Generalisability:

The point of realism in psychological research is to be able to generalise unique research setting in order to understand behaviour in everyday life.

If a study is conducted in a natural environment this does not mean that the findings can be generalised to the real world.

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