Generalizing Results

Generalizing Results

1. Generalizing results to other populations

   • University students are studied in 68% of articles
   • Volunteers
     • Different types of people are drawn to different studies
       • Problem solving study vs. interaction in small groups
   • Sex considerations
     • Can be more suited to one gender
   • Cultural considerations
     • Easier to compare cultures b/c universities are more diverse

2. Generalizing to other experimenters

   • Warm experimenter may get different results
   • More productive with experimenters that are dressed to gender roles and the opposite sex

3. Replication

   • Overcomes problems of generalization
   • Exact replication
     • Attempts to replicate precisely
   • Replication with extension
     • Builds on the findings of a previous study
   • Conceptual replication
     • The use of different procedures to replicate a finding

4. Literature review

   • Summarizes and evaluates a number of studies

5. Meta analysis

   • Researcher combines the actual results of various studies