Please read and review the booklet relating to research methods.
Answer the questions attached below to demonstrate your understanding of the topic
Submission is compulsory and will form the content of your first lesson in this subject so bring it in on day one of your 6th form career.
This piece of work will be used to form an understanding on how we complete research within Psychology. This information is key to the understanding of the nature of Psychology as a subject and is an essential element required throughout you two year A-Level.
An Introduction to Research Methods used in Psychology
Psychologists have three main goals when doing research:
- To find ways to measure and describe behavior
- To understand why, when, and how behaviour occurs
- To apply this knowledge to solve real-world problems
AIMS:
An aim is what the research investigation is trying to discover. It is related to the research question a researcher is trying to answer. The aim of an experiment is to test a hypothesis.
HYPOTHESES:
A hypothesis is a testable statement (not a question).
A ‘research hypothesis’ is a general prediction about what the researcher expects to happen or find out in an investigation.
A scientific hypothesis should be:
1. Clear - stated in well-defined terms (not vague and general);
2. Testable – a research study could show if it is correct or wrong
EXPERIMENTS
An experiment is where the researcher changes a key variable and notes its effect on behaviour.
The researcher changes something (a variable) to see if it has any effect on what he/she is trying to measure.
E.g. If the aim of the study was to test the effect of noise on memory, the researcher would get 2 different groups of participants and ask one group to remember a list of words in silence and the other group to remember the same list of words in noisy conditions. The researcher therefore changes the amount of noise that the participants are exposed to (silent or noisy) to see the effect it has on the amount of words they remember.
INDEPENDENT AND DEPENDENT VARIABLES
The thing that the researcher changes is called the independent variable (IV). It is easy to spot out as it is the 2 different conditions that the researcher has control over has been changed.
The thing that the researcher measures is called the dependent variable (DV). This is easy to spot as it is whatever the researcher is counting e.g. time.
EXTRANEOUS VARIABLES
Anything that could potentially affect the DV (other than the IV). These reduce the internal validity of the findings. There are three types of extraneous variables:
- Participant variables: how the participants differ, e.g. age, IQ, natural memory levels.
- Situational variables: anything in the environment that affects the results, e.g. overcrowding, temperature, noise.
- Experimenter effects: something the experimenter does which affects the participants’ behaviours, e.g. the way in which they read out instructions, facial expressions.
Lab experiments are carried out in a controlled setting (usually in a laboratory), allowing the researcher to exert a high level of control over the independent variable, and to eliminate or control for extraneous variables.
FIELD EXPERIMENTS
A field experiment is an experiment carried out in a real-world setting rather than the laboratory. The experimenter deliberately manipulates a key variable in order to record its effect on the participants e.g. primary school students in their usual classroom are given different toys to play with on two separate days and the researcher measures the different behaviour of the children to see if the toys have any effect on their behaviour.
NATURAL EXPERIMENTS
A type of experiment where the experimenter does not manipulate the independent variable, because naturally occurring differences in a key variable have affected the different participants in the study.
COMPLETE THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS:
TASK 1:
In the left hand column write an appropriate aim for the research question in the left hand column.
RESEARCH QUESTION / AIM
Do children learn gender stereotypes from watching television?
Is drug therapy the best way of treating anxiety disorders?
Are males or females more likely to suffer from depression?
TASK 2:
Write appropriate hypotheses for the following studies:
A psychologist set out to investigate if children are more aggressive in the playground in the morning than they are in the afternoon.
Hypothesis: ______
______
A psychologist set out to investigate the effect that therapy has on a person’s level of depression. She asks the participants to rate their level of depression by giving a score out of 100 before they started treatment and again after treatment.
Hypothesis: ______
______
TASK 3:
Look back at the memory example above and decide what is:
IV
DV
TASK 4: Think of any potential extraneous variables that could affect the results of the studies below.
Participants were tested on their ability to avoid obstacles in a computer driving simulation. The simulator recorded how many times the participants hit an obstacle during the simulation (max. 30). Half of the participants were asked to respond verbally to a series of questions during the simulation. The other half completed the same task but without questions.
Researchers asked AS Level students to complete a questionnaire about how long they spent studying each week. They were divided into two groups: those who spent more than ten hours a week studying and those who spent ten hours or less. After the exams, the researchers compared the exam marks (max. 100) of the two groups.
TASK 5: Read the extracts below and answer the questions that follow.
Parke, 1977
Studied male juvenile delinquents living in 2 small-group cottages in low security institutions. Participants were put into 2 different conditions:-
Condition 1: Boys in one cottage saw 5 films involving violence over a period of a week.
Condition 2: Boys in another cottage saw 5 non-violent films.
Participants were given rating of aggressiveness at the beginning and end of the study
Findings:
The first group showed increases in some kinds of aggression. / Williams, 1986.
Investigated children’s behaviour by measuring teacher and peer rating of the children’s verbal and physical aggression in a community where TV had recently been introduced for the first time.
This community was compared to one where there was a single TV channel and another that had several.
Findings
Aggressive behaviour in 6-11 year olds increased over a two year period following the introduction of TV but no such increase was found in the other 2 communities. / Bandura, 1965.
Showed 3 groups of children a film of an adult behaving aggressively towards a bobo doll.
Group A saw the adult (model) kicking and punching the bobo doll.
Group B saw the same adult behaviour plus a second adult joining the scene to compliment the model for his behaviour and give him drinks and sweets.
Group C saw the same adult behaviour with the second adult scolding the model and warning him not to be aggressive again.
After the film the children were put in a room that the researcher had purposely filled with specific toys including a bobo doll and their behaviour was measured.
Findings
Groups A and B showed significantly more imitative aggression towards the bobo doll than Group C.
Identify the IV and DV in each experiment
Parke, 1977. / Williams, 1986. / Bandura, 1965.
IV
DV
2. What was the aim of all the experiments?
3. Which is the:
Laboratory experiment
Field experiment
Natural experiment
4. Which experiment do you consider to be the most useful? (Explain your choice)