Research Methods

What are the ethical concepts?

BIRJN- Beneficence, integrity, respect, justice, non-maleficence

Define beneficence

- commitment to maximising benefits and minimizing harm when taking a particular course of action.

Example: Medical drug trial ensuring life-saving treatment benefits outweigh risks.

Define integrity

The commitment to knowledge and understanding and honest reporting of all info. and results, whether favourable or not.

Example: reporting both expected and unexpected findings.

Define respect

-the consideration of all living things and their capacity to make their own decisions

Example: Survey allowing participants to skip questions and withdraw at any time.

Define Justice

The moral obligation of competing claims, no unfair burden on a particular group, and fair access to benefits.

Example: Clinical trial with diverse participants to ensure generalisability.

Define non-maleficence

Avoidance of causing harm

Example: Psychological stress study avoiding extreme stressors and providing support.

What are the 6 Participants’ rights? CVIWDD

CVIWDD (Confidentiality, voluntary participation, informed consent, withdrawal rights, deception, debrieifing)

Define Confidentiality

-All personal details/information/results gathered from participants should be kept private

Define voluntary participation

Participants must not be forced to be involved in the study

Informed consent

-Participants must be told about the nature, risks, and rights of a study and sign a permission form (or if under age a parent/guardian signs)

Withdrawal rights

Participants are allowed to stop participating in experiment at any time, can also ask to have their results removed.

Deception

Sometimes providing too much info. about a study can impact accuracy. When necessary you can withhold some of the information about the study, providing it does not cause distress to participants and they are de-briefed afterwards.

Debriefing

Participants must always be provided with information about the nature, results, and conclusions at the end of the study

-any damage or misconceptions must also be reserved

-psychological support is also offered to participants post study

Define accuracy

-Closeness to true value of quantity being measured, impacted by systematic errors (a scale always reading 5 grams higher)

(SE- affects everyone equally, shifts true value consistently for all data points.)

Define Precision

Closeness of a set of values to one another, impacted by random errors

(RE- unpredictable variations in results that don’t follow a pattern such as weight measurements fluctuating due to standing on different positions on the scale)

How can an experiment have high repeatability

by consistently producing similar results when repeated under the same conditions. This means the experimental procedure, materials, and participants should be as standardised as possible to minimize variability

What makes a psychological investigation internally valid?

-If it investigates what it claims to investigate, if study not internally valid, external validity is irrelevant

What makes a pysch. investigation have high externally validity?

If results of the research can be applied to similar individuals in a different (external) setting, increased by using sampling techniques that are more representative of the population.

What is internal validity

Internal validity is the extent to which date obtained for a study are actually due to the variable(s) that were tested and not any extraneous or confounding variable

Extraneous variable- any variable other than the DV that can cause a change in the IV.

Confounding variable- any variable other than the IV that has had an effect on the DV.

Define extraneous variables

e.g participant differences - any variable other than IV that has unwanted effect on DV, found before data collection to control

Define confounding variable

Any variable other than IV that influenced the DV, also casually affects IV, usually found after experiment completion, means starting over.

Define internal validity

the extent to which the results obtained from the study are due to variables tested/measured and not other factors

What is within subjects design?

Where all participants are exposed to both conditions

Pros: Eliminates participant related differences (extraneous variable impacting validity), required less participants

Cons: Creates variable that have unwanted effect based on the order the experiment was conducted in, more time consuming as both conditions cannot be tested at the same time.

Define between subjects design

When participants are in either the control or experimental group

Pros: Lowers rate of participant withdrawal, less time consuming as both groups can be tested at the same time

Mixed subjects design

Combines both elements of within subjects and between subjects design

Pros: Allows multiple experimental conditions to be compared to a baseline group

Cons: Higher rate of participant withdrawal, due to being more time consuming, impacting internal validity.

Self report

Participants express their thoughts and feelings by answering open ended or fixed response questions

Pros: Time effective, cost-effective, anonymous so more likely to be honest, caters for participants who cannot read or write

Cons: Individuals may misinterpret the questions, give socially acceptable answers, may not elaborate on responses

Observational study

-actively watching the overt behaviour of participants in their natural environment.

Pros: More likely to see the “true” behaviour of participants

Con: Observational biases may occur

Case study

-Detailed, in depth report on an individual or group

Pros: Provides detailed information, usually about a rare phenomenon

Cons: Usually a small sample size, so findings cannot be generalised to a larger population

Experiment

Tests the cause and effective relationship between the IV and DV, tests a hypothesis under controlled conditions

Pros: Conducted under controlled conditions so there is more control on extraneous variables

Cons: Conducted under “artificial environment” so cannot see the true behaviour of participants

Correlational studies

Investigates the relationship between variables without the researcher manipulating or controlling any of them

Pros: Can see how variables are naturally related to indicate patterns, tests hypothesis where it is not possible to experimentally manipulate the IV

Cons: Cannot draw firm conclusions from cause and effect relationships

Fieldwork

Collecting information by directly observing and interacting with a selected environment

Pros: Natural settings are more likely to show behaviour that reflects real life, shows rich qualitative and quantitative data.

Cons: Observed behaviour is subjective and open to bias from researchers

Literature review

Comprehensive and critical reviews that provide an overview on current understanding in a particular area of interest, collate secondary data

Pros: Can determine what is already known and identify gaps in understanding for areas of future research.

Cons: Selection bias can occur which can result in the review to be unrepresentative of current understanding

Population

Larger group of research interest from which the sample is drawn

Sample

Subset of a population and refers to all participants that are involved in the study

Stratified sampling

Dividing population into groups based on categories: e.g female, male

Pros: Helps ensure highly representative sample

Cons: Needs time consuming to separate entire population into groups

Random sampling

Ensures that all participants have equal chance of being selected as a sample (Names out of a hat, table of random numbers)

Pros: Likely to generate a representative variable

Cons: Can be time consuming with larger population.