Sampling & Participants
This technique involves using whoever is available at the time of the study, like students in a canteen.
What is Opportunity Sampling?
Fatigue or practice that occurs when the same person takes part in every condition of an experiment.
What are Order Effects?
Numerical data that allows for easy statistical analysis, like the scores on a memory test.
What is Quantitative Data?
The extent to which a study's environment reflects real-life situations.
What is Ecological Validity?
Participants must agree to take part after being told the true nature and risks of the study.
What is Informed Consent?
The risk that participants who sign up for a study are more motivated or have different personalities than the general population.
What is Volunteer (Self-Selecting) Bias?
The "AB-BA" technique used in Repeated Measures to cancel out order effects.
What is Counterbalancing?
Descriptive, word-based data that provides depth and insight but is harder to compare.
What is Qualitative Data?
When two or more observers watch the same behavior and get the same results.
What is Inter-rater Reliability?
A post-experimental explanation provided to participants, especially if deception was used.
What is a Debrief?
A smaller group of people selected from the target population to represent them in a study.
What is a Sample?
A design where different participants are used in each level of the Independent Variable.
What is Independent Measures?
The measure of central tendency is calculated by adding all scores and dividing by the total number.
What is the Mean?
Clues in a study that lead participants to guess the aim and change their behavior.
What are Demand Characteristics?
One of the "Three Rs" of animal ethics: using computer models instead of live animals.
What is Replacement?
This term describes the extent to which findings from a sample can be applied to the target population.
What is Generalisability?
This design tries to have the "best of both worlds" by pairing participants on a trait like IQ or age.
What is a Matched Pairs Design?
A measure of dispersion calculated by subtracting the lowest score from the highest score and (usually) adding 1.
What is The Range?
Checking consistency by giving the same participants the same test at two different times.
What is Test-Retest Reliability?
The ethical guideline ensuring a participant can leave at any time and take their data with them.
What is the Right to Withdraw?
(Advanced) A method where the sample proportions match the exact sub-group percentages of the target population.
What is Stratified Sampling?
The process of keeping procedures exactly the same for every participant to ensure reliability.
What is Standardisation?
A symmetrical, bell-shaped curve where the mean, median, and mode all fall at the same central point.
What is a Normal Distribution?
A threat to validity where the researcher's personal feelings or interpretations influence the data.
What is Subjectivity?
The rule stating participants must not leave a study in a worse physical or mental state than they entered.
What is Protection from Harm?