An example is standing in a busy shopping centre and approaching people at random and asking them to take part in your study
what is opportunity sampling?
An experiment that takes place in a controlled environment where the experimenter manipulates the IV and measures the DV
What is a laboratory experiment?
A group that is treated normally and gives us a measure of how people behave when they are not exposed to the experimental treatment
what is a control group/condition?
This is where participants are misled or wrongly informed about the aims of the research
what is deception?
Participants are not told the true purpose of the research
What is a single-blind procedure?
participants choose to be in your study by responding to an advertisement you put up in the school halls
What is a volunteer sampling method?
IV is based on an individual difference between participants. No random allocation.
What is a Quasi experiment?
Participants are matched on some variable that is important to the experiment and then one of each pair is allocated to a different condition.
What is a matched pairs design?
participants should never be placed at any risk than they would be in their daily lives and should be protected from physical or psychological harm
what is protection from harm?
Middle value when scores are arranged in order.
it is less sensitive than the mean
What is a median?
a group of people from a target population that take part in a study
what is a sample?
when there is no previous research, or previous studies are contradictory.
When should you use a non-directional hypothesis?
A way of trying to control for order effects in a repeated measures design, e.g. half the participants do condition A followed by B and the other half do B followed by A
What is counterbalancing?
Rather than getting consent from the participants themselves, a similar group of people are asked if the study is acceptable. If this group agree, then the consent of the original participants is 'presumed'.
what is presumptive consent?
A symmetrical bell-shaped curve in which most people occupy the middle area and the mean, median and mode are all at the same central point.
What is a normal distribution?
Every member of the target population has an equal chance of being selected.
what is a random sample?
An experiment where the change in the IV is not brought about by the researcher- the researcher simply records the effect of the DV
what is a natural experiment?
An attempt to evenly distribute participant differences across experimental conditions in an independent group design.
What is random allocation?
Participants are made aware of the aims of the research, the procedure and their rights (to withdraw from the experiment if they should). This can be told to them verbally or written
what is informed consent?
A one-tailed hypothesis that states the direction of the difference or relationship
What is a directional hypothesis?
This is the extent to which we can apply the findings of our research to the target population we are interested in.
What is a generalisability?
A small-scale study that is conducted to ensure the method will work according to plan. If it doesn’t then amendments can be made.
What is a pilot study?
Participants are not told the true purpose of the research and the experimenter is also blind to at least some aspects of the research design.
What is a double-blind procedure?
when participants are deceived in the experiment, this type of consent is given at the end (during the debriefing) having already taken part in the study.
what is retrospective consent
A type of study that involves following someone or something over an extended time period
What is a longitudinal study?