Levels of Explanation
What are the 4 levels of explanation?
Biological, Basic Process, Person & Socio-Cultural
What are the 3 types of research design?
1.Experimental Research Design
2.Quantitative Observation Design
3.Qualitative Research Design
Three types of data collected
1.Objective quantitative
2.Subjective quantitative
3.Qualitative
Name the four lobes of the brain
•Frontal Lobe
•Parietal Lobe
•Occipital Lobe
•Temporal Lobe
List what each letter in VICARD stands for
•Voluntary Participation
•Informed Consent
•Confidentiality
•Accurate Reporting
•Right to Withdraw
•Deception and Debriefing
What is the Biological level of explanation?
The biological level focuses on the physical and chemical processes that underlie behaviour.
Brain Structures: neurons (nerve cells) in specific brain areas
Hormones: Testosterone in males may increase aggression, levels of sleep hormones etc.
Physiological responses – the ‘fight/flight’ response
Drug effects:
What is an extraneous variable?
Extraneous Variables are variables that have influenced the dependent variable and which cannot be distinguished from the independent variable, and can be participant related or environmental.
What is objective quantitatvice data? What are the advantages and disadvantages?
Objective quantitative data is real, directly measurable data that cannot be chosen by the participant. This data collected through an object or form of equipment that provides numerical information.
•Adv – lacks bias, fast to analyse
•Disadv – response can lack detail
State the name of the part of the brain that divides the lobes.
Fissures
What ethical considerations must be taken into account when conducting an experiment with children?
Infromed consent by a parent or guardian, confidentiality.
What is the Person level of explanation?
The person level of explanation focuses on the individual differences in behaviours. It considers how and why we all behave differently.
•Individual differences – experiences
•Personality types –e.g. extrovert vs introvert
•Intelligence
•Gender – male vs female
•Age
What are independent and dependent variables? Provide an example of each.
Independent Variable – the variable set are manipulated by the researcher or the treatment that participants in an experimental group are exposed to.
Dependent Variable – the variable that is observed, whether or not it changes depends on the influence of the independent variable.
What is subjective quantitative data? list its advantages and disadvantages.
Subjective quantitative data is provided directly by the participant but in the form of numerical information. This includes a sequence of self-reporting methods such as rating scales.
•Adv – fast to analyse
•Disadv – can contain bias
Where is the Brocas Area located and what is its function?
Broca’s Area controls facial neurons, speech, and language comprehension. Located on left frontal lobe.
Who are our vulnerable groups?
Vulnerable groups include those who are not old enough, or have the mental capacity to understand the information or to give legal consent. This may include children under the age of 18, the elderly, the mentally disabled, and the mentally ill. In these circumstances, a parent or guardian may have to give consent.
What is the Socio-Cultural level of explanation?
The socio-cultural level of explanation focuses on the social and cultural influences on behaviour. Social focuses on the influence of family and friends, and the cultural focuses on cultural background and aspects such as class, religion and race.
Including:
•Family
•Friends
•Religion
•Ethnicity
•Community
•Society
Explain experimental design research, and what are 3 important characteristics?
An experimental design is used to test whether one variable, or factor, influences or causes change in another variable.
Experimental designs can be conducted under strictly controlled conditions in a laboratory setting or in a field setting
Field settings are difficult to control but can give information about behaviour in the ‘real world’ situation.
Three important characteristics:
1.manipulation of independent variable by the research
2.use of control groups,
3.random allocation of participants.
What is qualitative data? list advantages and disadvantages.
Qualitative Data is a written or spoken responses that assess participant’s thoughts, feelings and ideas. This includes interviews, questionnaires and written surveys where the respondent is recording through words. This data is collected through qualitative research methods such as the Delphi technique or focus groups.
•Adv – contains detailed information
•Disadv – can be time consuming to analyse, can contain bias
If I was having problems with vision, which part of the brain is being impacted?
The occipital lobe. This lobe plays an integral role in: the processing, integration, interpretation of VISION and visual stimuli.
Describe one ethical consideration that researchers should maintain when working with people.
•Voluntary Participation
•Informed Consent
•Confidentiality
•Accurate Reporting
•Right to Withdraw
•Deception and Debriefing
What is the Basic Process level of explination?
The basic processes level focuses on the psychological processes that are universal (or at least very widespread) among humans.
Cognition
Perception – understanding what is happening around you
Emotions
Motivation
Memory – how do our previous experiences affect us?
Learning – how does our previous learning affect us?
What is a focus group? provide advantages and disadvantages of focus groups.
Focus Groups: a focus groups is a group interview technique that obtains data through discussion between research participants and their thoughts, feelings and ideas.
Advantages
•Rich data can be collected from detailed responses.
•This method is easy to organise and inexpensive
•In a group situation, people may feel more comfortable to disclose information because there is ‘safety in numbers’.
Disadvantages
•Individuals within the focus group may dominate the discussion, and silence the opinions of other participants.
•The data is interpreted by the researcher who may find that some data should not be used as it is unrepresentative of the population.
Provide the difference between subjective and objective data.
Objective Data – data attained through object or equipment.
Objective data involves responses that are based on measurements of a participant’s responses that are physical, real and can be demonstrated. These results are free from bias and require no interpretation by the researcher.
Subjective Data – data attained directly from the subject.
Subjective data involves self-reports and relies on the subject’s opinions, ideas and thoughts. The subject gets to choose their responses, which can be interpreted by the researcher, and can contain intentional or unintentional bias.
What are the roles of the four lobes?
The frontal lobe plays an integral role in:
Memory Formation, Emotions, Decision Making / Reasoning and Personality
The parietal lobe plays an integral role in. Senses and integrates sensation and spatial awareness and perception.
The occipital lobe plays an integral role in: the processing, integration, interpretation of VISION and visual stimuli.
The function of the temporal lobe is to process and comprehend auditory information from the ears (hearing).
What is the mean, median and mode of the follwing data set?
2,5,7,5,2,9,7,4,3,2
Median 4
Mean 5
Mode 2