revision for oct mocks

What’s a natural experiment?

Looking into naturally occurring events.

What’s a quasi experiment?

Experiment looking into cause and effect relationships where they independent variable can’t be changed.

What’s a covert observation?

People being observed that don’t know they’re being observed

What is a participant observation?

When observers act as participants (confederates)

What are the two types of self-report techniques?

Questionairre, interview

What’s an unstructured interview?

An interview that is unplanned and made up on the spot.

What is a co-variables study?

When two or more variables are studied - the experimenter is looking for a correlation.

What’s content analysis?

Turning qualitative data into quantitative data.

Directional hypothesis definition.

When the hypothesis states that something will cause something - as a result of previous research’s conclusions.

What are the different experimental designs?

Independent groups - two different groups of two different things. These are compared (worst one).

Repeated measures - same group does two conditions

Matched pairs - independent groups, but people are matched on key characteristics and compared (best one).

What are behavioural categories in psychology?

Behavioural categories in psychology are specific, operationally defined groups of behaviours that researchers use to categorise observations and conduct analyses.

They help ensure that data collection is systematic and quantifiable.

What is time sampling?

Marking a behavioural category after different amounts of time periods.

What is event sampling?

Time sampling, but marking down if there’s a change in behaviour.

What is operationalisation?

Changing something so that it can be measured

(Eg purposefully annoying participants to measure their anger levels)

What does BPS stand for?

British Psychological Society (has the code of ethics for research)

Sampling definition.

How you pick your participants

Investigator effects definition

When the experimenter biases the experiment towards the results they want to achieve.

(Removed by double-blind method)

What is a test-re-test?

Testing something again to improve reliability.

What are the three different types of validity?

Face validity - getting someone to see if your experiment seems reliable

Concurrent validity - when past research is similar to your results

Ecological validity - how applicable your results are to real-life

Objectivity definition.

When something is a fact.

Falsifiability definition

The principle that a scientific theory or hypothesis must be structured in a way that it can be tested and potentially proven false by evidence.

(Eg Freud’s ideas about the unconscious are often criticised for lacking falsifiability, since they cannot be tested in a way that could prove them wrong)

Paradigm definition

General theories/ideas believed within a society

Experimental design: what are the features of a psychological report?

1. Abstract - brief study of experiment - including the aim, methods, results and conclusion (200 words)

2. Intro - outlines background and relevant studies, states hypothesis

3. Method - explains how the experiment was conducted - including the design, sample, apparatus/materials and procedure

4. Results - clearly presents the findings - including descriptive and inferential statistics

5. Discussion - explains what the results mean, considers strengths limitations and possible future research, draws a conclusion about the hypothesis

6. References - full details of all sources used

7. Appendices - extra material including raw data and consent forms.

What’s the difference between descriptive and inferential statistics?

Descriptive statistics - summarising and describing characteristics of a data set (like averages and distributions)

Inferential statistics - make inferences or predictions about a larger population based on a the sample (so same as descriptive but you also infer)

What are the different types of graphs and charts, and when are they used?

Bar charts - used when dealing with categories (bars can’t touch)

Histogram - used when dealing with continuous data - when the variable is measured along a scale - (bars must be touching).

Frequency polygon - like a histogram, but a line is plotted instead of bars. This is again used for continuous data.

Scattergram - used for correlations, to show the relationship between two variables. You then draw a line of best fit and indicate either a positive or negative correlation.

For all graphs make sure they are labelled and titled (to show what they are measuring).

What is a correlation coefficient?

A value from 0 to 1, showing how much the values correlate.

What is statistical testing?

The different ways of finding the significance of your results.

What’s a skewed distribution?

When central tendencies are all different values.

This is due to anomalous results.

What’s thematic analysis?

Identifying, analysing and reporting on patterns (eg from the media)

What are the different levels of measurement (how data is categorised?)

Nominal data (qualitative), ordinal (data in numbers that isn’t quantifiable), interval data (numbers that are quantifiable)