RM PT2

What are ethical issues?

When a conflict exists between the rights and dignity of the participants and the aims of the research. Researchers must follow the BPS code of conduct.

What is informed consent?

Participants should be made aware of the aims, procedures and their right to withdraw before they agree to take part.

How do you make sure you have informed consent?

What is deception.

Participants should not be deliberately misled. Some deception is acceptable but participants must be fully debriefed at the end.

How do you deal with deception?

Debrief your participants at the end of the experiment

What is debrief.

What is protection from harm?

Participants should not be exposed to any more risk than they would be in everyday life. If harm has been caused, participants should be offered counselling as part of the debrief.

How do you ensure protection from harm?

What is privacy and confidentiality?

Participants' anonymity and privacy must be respected and names should not be recorded

Describe withdrawal.

What is a pilot study?

‘Small-scale’ practice run of actual investigation where researchers can check if all aspects of research work and allows researcher to make changes or modifications if necessary

What is the purpose of pilot studies?

• participants are able to suggest appropriate changes for real study

• participants can admit if they showed demand characteristics

What are the 6 types of observations?

• Naturalistic

• Laboratory

• Covert

• Overt

• Participant

• Non-participant

What is a naturalistic observation?

The researcher becomes a member of the group whose behaviour he/she is watching

Evaluate naturalistic observations.

• strength- high external validity

• strength- findings can be generalised to real life

• weakness- lack of control makes replication difficult

• weakness- uncontrolled extraneous variables

What is a controlled observation?

Watching and recording behaviour within a structured environment, i.e. one where some variables are managed

What is a covert observation?

Participants’ behaviour is watched and recorded without their knowledge and consent

What are overt observations?

Participants’ behaviour is watched and recorded with their knowledge and consent

Evaluate covert observations.

• strength- limited participant reactivity so observed behaviour will be natural

• strength- high validity

• weakness- ethics

Evaluate overt observations.

• strength- ethically acceptable

• weakness- knowledge that they are being watched may affect participant behaviour

What is a participant observation?

The researcher becomes a member of the group whose behaviour he/she is watching

Evaluate participant observations.

• strength- researcher can experience the situation as the participants do, giving them increased insight

• weakness- researcher may lose objectivity- ‘going native’

What is a non-participant observation?

The researcher remains outside of the group whose behaviour he/she is watching

Evaluate non-participant observations.

• strength- researcher can maintain an objective psychological distance

• weakness- may lose valuable insight as they are too far removed

What are the 2 types of self report techniques?

Questionnaires and interviews

What is a questionnaire?

set of pre-written questions (sometimes referred to as ‘items’) used to assess a person’s thoughts and/or experiences

What are weaknesses of questionnaires?

• Responses given might not always be truthful- may be keen to present themselves in a positive light (social desirability bias) and this may influence their answers.

• Response bias: this is where participants tend to reply in a similar way e.g. always ticking yes

What are strengths of questionnaires?

• Cost effective – questionnaires can gather large amounts of data quickly

• Can be completed without the researcher being present → reduces effort on the part of the researcher

• Straightforward to analyse, especially if there are fixed choice questions

• Quantitative data lends itself to statistical analysis

What is Aquiescence bias?

When a person agrees with items on a questionnaire regardless of the content of the question

What are the 2 types of questions that can be asked in a questionnaire?

Open and closed questions

What are open questions?

Does not have a fixed range of answers and respondents are free to respond in any way they wish.

Open questions produce qualitative data rich in detail.

What are closed questions?

Offers a fixed number of responses and generates quantitative data.

Easy to analyse

What are interviews?

A ‘live encounter’ (either over the phone or face-to-face) where an interviewer asks an interviewee a set of questions to assess an interviewee’s thoughts and/or experiences.

What are the 3 types of interviews?

Structured, Unstructured and Semi- structured

What is a structured interview?

Made up of a pre- determined set of questions that are asked in a fixed order

Evaluate structured interviews.

+ Straightforward to replicate due to their standardised format, format also reduces differences between interviewers.

- Not possible for participants to elaborate which may cause frustration/lead to less insightful results

What is a semi-structured interview?

Falls somewhere in between the two. There is a list of questions that has been worked out in advance but the interviewer is also free to ask follow up questions if they feel it is appropriate.

What is an unstructured interview?

Flows like a conversation. No set questions but there will be a general aim and a certain topic will be discussed. The interviewee is encouraged to expand and elaborate their answers, prompted by the interviewer

Evaluate unstructured interviews.

• strength- flexibility – interviewer can follow up points as they arise so will be more likely to get rich insights

• weakness- Analysis is difficult, which makes it hard to draw firm conclusions

• weakness- Risk that interviewees might lie due to social desirability

Define ‘correlation’.

Correlation illustrates strength & direction of an association between 2 or more co-variables (things being measured)

• plotted on a scatter graph

Define co-variables.

One co-variable forms the x-axis and the other forms the y-axis

-each point/ dot on the graph is x and y of each co-variable

-co-variables shops the relationship between variables, not establishing a cause and effect

Define positive correlation.

As one variable increases, so does the other

Define negative correlation.

As one variable increases, the other decreases

Define zero correlation.

There is no relationship between the co-variables

What are 2 strength do using correlations?

• quick and economical- correlations only assess the relationship between 2 co-variables, no need for a controlled environment or to manipulated variables

• Useful as a primary tool- provide quantifiable measure of how 2 variables are related, if 2 variables are strongly correlated, might suggest ideas for later research

What are 2 weaknesses of using correlations?

• third variable problem- another untested variable (intervening variable) may be causing the relationship between the 2 co-variables

• Cannot demonstrate cause and effect- due to lac of experimental manipulation, studies can tell us how variables are related but not why- we don’t know which us causing the other to change, establishing direction of effect is an issue

What are the numbers for each type of correlation (zero correlation to perfect correlation)?

• Zero correlation = 0

• Weak correlation. = 0.1-0.3

• Moderate correlation = 0.4-0.5

• Strong correlation = 0.6-0.9

• Perfect correlation = 1

What are the 4 types of data?

• Primary & Secondary

• Quantitative & Qualitative

What is primary data?

Data collected first-hand by the researcher, specifically for the use of the experiment

Evaluate primary data.

• strength- specific information that was made for the experiment, the techniques to obtain the information itself is even made for the experiment

• Weakness- very hard to obtain- requires a lot of time & effort from the researcher, planning etc, may also be very expensive

What is secondary data?

Data collected by someone other than the researcher

Evaluate secondary data.

• strength- easy to obtain, instead of a long process, the researcher can find the data from a second hand source, on government websites, local police stations etc, this does not require a lot of time, effort, or money

• Weakness- may have variation in quantity or accuracy, data is not catered/specific/made for the experiment so validity of the experiment may decrease

What is quantitative data?

Data that is expressed in numerical form

Evaluate quantitative data.

• strength- easier to analyse- no room for subjectivity as numbers can only be interpreted in one weak- quantitative data is less open to bias

• Weakness- very restricted in terms of providing external info,

• Data is restricted by a single value, less in sight is provided to the researcher

What is qualitative data?

Data that is expressed in a non-numerical format

Evaluate qualitative data.

• strength- provides detailed responses, providing rich insight to researcher because responses are not limited by quantity, this in creases the external validity tot the wider population

• Weakness- difficult to analyse because data is non numerical, so its open to objectivity and could be interpreted in a different way than intended

What is meta-analysis?

Process in which the data of a large number of studies conducted with the same research question is combined

Evaluate meta-analysis.

• strength- allows us to view data with much more confidence and results can be generalised to the wider population

• Weakness- prone to publication bias- researcher may not select all relevant studies, leaving out studies w -ve or non-significant results, will be biased data as it only represents some relevant data and incorrect conclusions are drawn