Experiment
The way that the participants are allocated in a true experiment
Randomly
The type of study where the researcher observes participants in their usual context.
Naturalistic observation
What's the difference between a structured interview and an unstructured interview?
structured interviews have a set of questions that must be asked; unstructured interviews are conversations that have a focus, but no specific list of questions.
Define what a case study is in Psychology and provide an example.
Case studies are often confined to the study of a particular individual. The information is mainly biographical and relates to events in the individual’s past (i.e., retrospective), as well as to significant events that are currently occurring in his or her everyday life.
E.g.: Studying the effectiveness of psychotherapy approaches with an individual patient, HM, etc
When a participant acts in a specific way to avoid looking bad, dishonest, incompetent, etc. in front of the researcher.
social desirability bias
Identify the independent and dependent variables in this experiment: "Researchers are testing the effect of sleep deprivation on memory performance."
IV: the effect of sleep deprivation
DV: memory performance
What are three ways that the representative data can be obtained through naturalistic observation?
Time sampling
Event sampling
Situation sampling
Give one example of how researcher bias can impact interviews.
Order effects, leading questions, halo effect, body language, tone of voice, etc
List two advantages of using case studies as a research method.
Why is bidirectional ambiguity a problem in correlational studies?
we cannot know if x causes y, if y causes x, or if there is no true cause-and-effect relationship.
The problem that arises when controls are so good that the researcher can no longer predict behaviours in a natural environment.
Low ecological validity
A researcher conducts a study by watching participants in their usual context, but the participants are not aware they are being studied.
Covert observation
Compare the strengths and weaknesses of using semi-structured interviews versus structured interviews in psychological research.
semi: Flexible, reliable, and comparable qualitative data; however it is time-consuming, and is more dependent on the individual skills of the interviewer than in structured interviews.
What type of data do case studies produce?
qualitative
What is one problem with using retrospective data?
Memory distortions, a lack of memory, dishonesty
An experimental feature in which neither the experimenter nor the subjects of the experiment know which set of participants is being studied and which set is just a control group.
Double-blind control
What is one limitation of a covert observation?
It raises ethical concerns regarding informed consent.
Identify and discuss two ethical considerations when conducting interviews with vulnerable populations.
informed consent
confidentiality and privacy
Name two limitations of the case study method.
difficult to generalise to other populations
cannot demonstrate cause and effect
vulnerable to researcher bias/subjectivity in analysis
List two limitations of correlational studies
no direct cause and effect can be inferred
confounding variables
A study aimed to measure the effect of television on aggression in children. Aggression levels were measured before television was available in the community and then again one year after children in the community had been exposed to television. What type of experiment is this and why?
Naturalistic
(The researcher uses naturally occurring variables by studying a community that had no access to TV and then got access to TV.)
List two limitations of carrying out an overt observation.
Hawthorne effect (When people know they are being observed they behave differently (consciously or unconsciously.)
Reliability (the success of research depends heavily on the personal skills and characteristics of the lone researcher/unlikely to produce reliable data.)
Representativeness (group studied is small/ the sample is often selected haphazardly/ can't be generalised to the wider population.)
List two advantages and two disadvantages of using unstructured interviews as a research method in psychology.
Pros: qualitative data (more in-depth), increased validity
Cons: time-consuming, Employing and training interviewers is expensive and not as cheap as collecting data via questionnaires.
What is a potential challenge when using triangulation in a case study involving multiple data sources?
data integration
Discuss three potential confounding variables in a study examining the correlation between sleep duration and cognitive performance. How might these confounding variables impact the interpretation of the correlation?
Age, mental health issues, lifestyle factors, sleep quality, educational and occupational factors etc