Research Methods

Aim
- statement of what the researcher intends to find out in a research study

Procedure
- ways a study is to be structured or has been structured.

Conclusion
- summing up of the points and a statement of opinion or decisions reached

Hypothesis
- a mere assumption or guess.

Operationalise
- A concept where something needs to be specified more clearly if we are going to investigate it

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Dependent Variable
- something that is MEASURED by the experimenter

Confounding Variable
- is an extraneous variable which affects the variables being studied so that the results you get do not reflect the actual relationship between the variables under investigation

External Validity
- where a research findings can be generalised
Ecological / Population / Historical

Ecological
- finding can be generalised to the real world

Internal validity
- Which an observed effect was due to a researcher controlling all extraneous variables
Face / Concurrent / Predictative

Predictive
- performance on a test is related to later performance that the test was designed to predict

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[ experimental/ participant design ]

Demand Characteristics - participants more likely to guess the aim of the study

Amount of participants - less/more time consuming to collect participants

Volunteer
- relies solely on volunteers to make up a sample

Opportunity
- participants who are most easily available at the time

Stratified
- produced by identifying subgroups according to their frequency in the population
- participants are the selected randomly from the subgroups

Demand characteristics
- cue that makes participants aware of the aims of the study

Experimenter effects
- results that an experimental researcher subsconciously communicated the expected results to the participant

Single blind design
- participants are not aware of the aims
Double blind design
- both researcher and participants are blind

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[ Types of Experiment ]

Field (natural environment)
- IV manipulated
- DV measured
- Harder to control extraneous variables

Quasi (almost experiment)
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