Psychological Investigations
Revision
Plan for today
• Recap quiz self-reports, observations,
correlations and experiments.
• Recap of key points for self-reports,
observations, correlations and experiments.
• Psychological Investigations Articulate.
• Practice exam paper.
• Psychological Investigations Bingo
RECAP QUIZ PSYCHOLOGICAL
INVESTIGATIONS
Observations, Self-reports,
Correlations & Experiments
1) An experiment where the
independent variable is not
manipulated by the experimenter.
A) Quasi experiment
B) Field experiment
C) Controlled observation
D) Lab experiment
2) When the two groups / conditions
in an experiment consist of the same
individuals.
A) Independent measures design
B) Repeated measures design
C) Matched pairs design
3) A statement to be tested which
predicts that there will be a
relationship between two variables.
A) Correlational hypothesis
B) Null hypothesis
C) Experimental hypothesis
D) Aim
4) High values of one variable are
associated with low values of the
other.
A) Positive correlations
B) Negative correlation
C) No correlation
5) Comparing your questionnaire to a
well established one is a way to ensure
A)
B)
C)
D)
Internal reliability
External validity
Concurrent validity
Predictive validity
6) A type of observational study where
the observer is also a participant in the
activity being studied.
A) Naturalistic observation
B) Covert observation
C) Participant observation
7) Every member of the target
population has an equal chance of being
chosen to participant in the study.
A) Volunteer sample
B) Random sample
C) Opportunity sample
D) Self-selected sample
8) Refers to how consistent a
measuring device is.
A) Reliability
B) Validity
C) Ecological validity
D) Reductionism
9) A study carried out over a very short
period of time such as hours and days.
A) Snap-shot study
B) Longitudinal study
C) Observational study
D) Case study
10) Predicts a difference OR
correlation between two variables but
not the direction
A) One-tailed hypothesis
B) Two-tailed hypothesis
C) Null hypothesis
11) Which of the following is not a
type of observation?
A)
B)
C)
D)
Controlled observation
Participant
Field
Naturalistic
12) Which type of questions would
you not want in your questionnaire?
A)
B)
C)
D)
Open questions
Ambiguous questions
Closed questions
Likert scale questions
PSYCHOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS
The Exam
• The exam is 1 hour long and you will have to
answer three questions.
• This unit is 30% of your total AS psychology paper marked out of 60.
• Although you will have to learn four sections for
this paper, you will only be asked questions on
three of the sections.
You may be asked questions about:
Experiments
Correlations
Observations
Self-Reports
•the piece of research including strengths and weaknesses.
•the data produced by the research.
•to design your own research
•the strengths and weaknesses of this proposed research.
Learning objectives for self-reports
• Describe strengths and weaknesses of using
questionnaires and interviews.
• Identify examples of closed and open
questions and discuss the type of data they
collect.
• Describe types of validity and reliability.
Questionnaires
Questionnaires can be thought of as a written interview. They can
be carried out face to face, over the phone or by post.
Strengths
• Quick, easy and cheap
way to gather
information from a
large number of people.
• Anonymity may
increase honesty.
• Reduces interviewer
bias.
•
•
•
•
•
•
Weaknesses
Leading questions
Ambiguous questions
Socially desirable
answering/lying.
Low response rate.
Possibly
unrepresentative
sample.
Too long = lose interest.
Types of question
Open questions
Closed questions
 Better represents
participants true feelings
(higher validity).
 Obtains rich and detailed
data.
 More realistic (higher
ecological validity).
• Difficult and time
consuming to analyse.
• Harder to compare
responses between
participants.
 Easy to score, compare
responses and display on
a graph.
• Participants may be
forced to respond in a
particular way.
• Acquiescence Response
Set (ARS)
• Does not obtain rich data.
Likert scales
Strengths
Weaknesses
 Gives more than a yes or
no – shows strength of
opinion.
 Produces quantitative
data which is easy to
analyse.
• People tend to respond
towards the middle of the
questionnaire (look less
extreme).
• Socially desirable answers
• No depth to data
produced.
Interview
Unstructured (Informal chat)
Structured (Pre-determined Qs)
 Detailed information
about opinions can be
gathered.
 Encourages openness
and flexibility.
 Standardised questions
(replication)
 Can be fairly quickly and
easily applied to a large
and representative
number of people.
• Difficult to analyse.
• Time-consuming.
• Interviewer effects.
• Information gathered
depends on quality of
questions (can’t be
changed).
• Lots of pre planning
required.
Reliability and Validity
• Internal reliability – how consistent are
participants answers across similar questions?
• External reliability – does the test give consistent
results on different days for same participants?
• Concurrent validity – comparing your
questionnaire to an already well established on to
check validity.
• Predictive validity – are test results a good
predictor of future performance?
Learning objectives for observations
• Understand the differences between the three
types of observation and be able to evaluate
each.
• Understand the differences between the three
sampling methods and be able to evaluate
each.
• Define observer bias and inter-rater reliability.
Types of observation
1) Naturalistic
Observing and recording the behaviour of people or animals
in their natural surroundings i.e. children in playground.
2) Controlled
Takes place in a controlled environment which has been
manipulated by the experimenter i.e. Bandura et al (1961).
3) Participant
Observer takes an active part in the situation under
observation usually without the knowledge of the participants
i.e. Rosenhan (1973).
Naturalistic observation
Strengths
• High ecological validity
• Can be used in situations
where an experiment would
be unethical.
• Can be used to generate
ideas which can then be
tested experimentally.
Weaknesses
• Lack of control over
variables makes replication
difficult.
• Cannot infer cause and
effect (variables have not
been manipulated).
• Observer bias
Controlled observation
Strengths
Weaknesses
• More control = easier
replication.
• Lower ecological validity
• Easier to use video
cameras than in a
naturalistic setting.
• May cause other ethical
issues i.e. cause
discomfort, deception
and invasion of privacy.
• Usually avoids ethical
issues
• Risk of demand
characteristics.
Participant observation
Strengths
• Allows an in-depth and
detailed understanding
of the situation that
non-participant
observations cannot
provide.
Weaknesses
• Ethics - privacy/confidentiality.
• The participant observer may
influence the behaviour under
study.
• Observer bias
• High ecological
validity.
• More difficult for observer to
make notes (memory issues).
• It could become dangerous (if
cover is blown)
Sampling methods: Time sampling
Description: Observations made at regular intervals
i.e. every 5 minutes.
Strength
A large number of participants can be observed at
once.
Weakness
Some behaviours may be missed so the observation
is not representative.
Sampling Methods: Event sampling
Description: A list of behaviours drawn up and a frequency
count kept.
Strength
Behaviours are recorded as they occur.
Weakness
If lots of behaviours occur at once, it may be
difficult for observers to record it all.
Sampling Methods: Point sampling
Description: Continuous observation of just one
participants behaviour.
Strength
Lots of data gathered.
Weakness
The data gathered is only relevant to one person
so cannot be generalised.
Observer bias and Inter-rater reliability
Observer bias
Inter-rater reliability
Each individual may make different
interpretations during observations
or record behaviours differently
Measure of agreement between
two or more observers.
To reduce ….
To improve ….
1) Try to have a clear idea of
what they are looking for
by clearly defining the
categories (coding scheme)
2) Using more than one
observer and checking the
inter-rater reliability.
1) Observers need to clearly
operationalise the
behaviours under
observation.
2) Could perform a pilot study
and carry out a correlation
to see if there is good
consistency between them.
Learning objectives for
correlations
• Be able to define a positive and a negative correlation
and give an example of each.
• Be able to recognise and write a one tailed
correlational hypothesis, a two tailed correlational
hypothesis and a null hypothesis.
• Be able to identify variables and operationalise
variables.
• Be able to sketch and label a scattergraph.
• Be able to describe strengths and weaknesses of
correlations.
Defining a correlation
• A correlation is a relationship between two variables.
• We don’t look for differences between variables.
• We don’t look at independent variables and dependent
variables, we look at covariables.
• CORRELATION DOES NOT MEAN CAUSATION!!!
• There are three types of correlation that we can find:
–Positive correlations
–Negative correlations
–No correlation
Positive Correlation
• A positive correlation occurs when as one
variable increases, the other variable also
increases.
E.G Temperature increases
Sales of ice creams increase
Negative Correlation
• A negative correlation occurs when
as one variable increases, the other
variable decreases.
E.G A chicken gets older
It lays fewer eggs
Writing hypotheses for
correlations: One and two-tailed
These are broadly written in the same way as
experimental hypotheses, except we are predicting a
relationship not a difference.
• A two-tailed research hypothesis could be, “
there will be a significant correlation between the
achievement in AS Psychology and attendance in
Psychology classes”.
• A one-tailed research hypothesis could be, ‘there
will be a significant positive/negative correlation
between the achievement in AS Psychology and
attendance in Psychology classes”.
Writing hypotheses for
correlations: Null
• A null hypothesis could be - “ there will
be no significant correlation between
the achievement in AS Psychology and
attendance in Psychology classes”.
Operationalising variables
What does operationalise mean?
How we are going to measure a variable.
E.G 1 Variable 1
Intelligence
Variable 2
Happiness
E.G 2 Variable 1
Tiredness
Variable 2
Memory
Correlations
Advantages
 Could suggest ideas for
an experiment which
could investigate cause
and effect.
 Can be used to look at a
relationship which is
too unethical to
conduct an experiment
for e.g. smoking and
lung cancer.
Disadvantages
• We can see
relationships
between variables
but we cannot infer
cause and effect.
• Cannot be used to
make prediction
Learning objectives for experiments
• Identify and give strengths and weaknesses of
each type of experiment.
• Identify and give strengths and weaknesses of
each experimental design.
• Work out and express descriptive data.
Types - Lab experiments
STRENGTHS
• High levels of control
• Can establish cause and
effect relationship
between IV and DV (as
long as extraneous
variables had been
eliminated).
• Easier to replicate.
• Less expensive and time
consuming that other
methods.
WEAKNESSES
• Demand
characteristics/social
desirability.
• Experimenter bias.
• Low ecological validity.
• Ethics (to avoid D.Cs =
deception, no informed
consent).
Types - Field experiments
STRENGTHS
• High ecological
validity.
• Still possible to
establish cause
and effect
between IV and
DV.
WEAKNESSES
• Low control over
extraneous
variables.
• Covert
observations =
ethical issues.
Types - Quasi experiments
STRENGTHS
WEAKNESSES
• Inexpensive (do not • Harder to establish
causal relationships
need to manipulate
because I.V is not being
IV).
directly manipulated.
• Can study unusual
• Ethical concerns over
variables which
using participants
couldn’t be
without consent.
manipulated i.e. split
brains.
Design – Repeated measures
Description: Same participants in each condition.
Strengths
Weaknesses
• Fewest participants
needed.
• Participants
characteristics will
be the same across
conditions.
• Order effects
• Demand
characteristics
• Drop out
Design – Independent Measures
Description: Different participants in each
condition.
Strengths
Weaknesses
• Quick and easy to • Lots of participants
required.
run
• Participant variables
• No order effects or
i.e. intelligence may
bias
bias results.
Design – Matched Pairs
Description: Different participants in each
condition matched for certain characteristics.
Strengths
Weaknesses
• No order effects.
• Reduces participant
variables.
• Requires lots of
participants to begin.
• If one participant
drops out so must
the other.
• Expensive and time
consuming.
Descriptive statistics
Measures of central tendency
1) Mean = average. Add all entries and divide by
number of entries (Can be misleading if there
are extremes).
2) Median = middle. Put all numbers in rank order
and find middle (Not all scores are taken into
account).
3) Mode = most common. Put all numbers in rank
order and identify the most frequently occurring
number (Used less freq as they tell us nothing
about other numbers in the sample, may not be
central).
Descriptive statistics
Measures of spread
Range = difference between largest and smallest
numbers in a data set.
Psychological Investigations Articulate
• In groups of 3
• Write 25 key terms from psychological investigations on
a piece of paper.
• Each team will take it in turns for one member to
describe the key terms to their team mates who have
to guess which key term they are describing.
• RULES = You can’t say the words written on the card,
you can’t say sounds like and you can’t say begins with.
• Each player can have one pass.
TIMER
http://www.classtools.net/education-games-php/timer
Past exam paper practice
June 2009
 Self report
 Experiment
 Correlation
Self-report – Section A
1) A – Clear and appropriate (2) X 2 = (4)
B – Clear, evaluation (strength and weakness)
and contextualised (4).
2) A – Refer to the target population and suggest
one technique to randomly sample (2).
B – Clear, 2 + evaluation points about random
sampling, contextualised (4).
Self-report
3) A – Reference to it being expressed
numerically (2).
B – One strength and one weakness BOTH
contextualised (4).
Experiment
4) Description of a way to measure memory that
is clear and replicable (6) and an evaluation with
reference to more than one evaluation issue (4)
=(10)
5) Clear definition of Independent measures (2)
and of repeated measures (2) = (4)
Experiment
6) Clear and detailed explanation of a strength
which is contextualised (3) and clear and
detailed explanation of a weakness which is
contextualised (3) = (6)
Correlation
7) Clearly stated null hypothesis with reference
to both of the measured variables (4)
8) A – Appropriate and accurate scattergraph (1)
with clear labelling and scales on both axes (3) =
(4)
B – A clear conclusion which can be clearly
derived from the scattergraph (2) X 2 = (4)
Correlation
9) Clearly explained strength and contextualised
(3) and clearly explained weakness and
contextualised (3) = (6)
10) Clear explanation of a negative correlation
(2)
PSYCHOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS
BINGO
Pick 3 terms from each list
• Null hypothesis
• One-tailed
hypothesis
• Two-tailed
hypothesis
• Independent
variable
• Dependent
variable
• Extraneous
variable
• Qualitative
• Quantitative
• Volunteer sample
• Opportunity
sample
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Likert
Internal reliability
External reliability
Concurrent
validity
Predictive validity
Controlled
Time sampling
Point sampling
Observer bias
Inter-rater
reliability
• Positive
correlation
• Negative
correlation
• Operationalising
• Scattergram
• Causation
• Quasi experiment
• Independent
measures
• Mixed pairs
• Median
• Mode