Research

Methods
Introductio
n
Ethical guidelines
Informed consent:
Participants should be briefed with as much
information as possible about a study to enable them to
make an informed judgement as to whether to take
part or not.
However …
What sort of information should we give participants?
Should we reveal everything? Why might we want to
hide some information?
Not everyone is capable of
giving informed consent
Deception
0 Deception should only be used if there is no
alternative
0 We should seek approval from an ethics committee
0 Debriefing does not justify deception

Right to withdraw
0 We must make participants aware that they are free to
leave a study at any time, even if we’ve paid them!
They can also refuse permission for their data to be
used
 Protection from physical and psychological harm:
0 Participants’ psychological and physiological safety
must be ensured
0 We cannot expose them to greater risk than their
normal life experiences
Confidentiality
0 Information about our participants is protected by the
Data Protection Act
0 They must not be identifiable in published research

Participant 21
Participants are given numbers
or referred to by a code or their
initials
Privacy:
0 Often tricky if we’re conducting observations when
people are unaware they’re being watched, but we
must maintain their right to privacy
0 We should only observe people where they would
expect to be observed by others in public places…

Debriefing:
We must always debrief participants after a study to
allow them to ask questions and for the researcher to
remind them again of their right to withdraw

We’ve had a look at the
parts of your brain that
are active in processing
emotions. We’d like to get
a doctor from our
neurology department to
come and see you.
0 Sometimes, we uncover
problems during
research
0 If we believe these
might be detrimental
to a participant’s future
well-being, we have a
duty to sensitively
inform them or gain
appropriate
professional help

That brain tumour’s so big

it’s a wonder your head
hasn’t exploded
 We must all take
responsibility for
good practice. We
should challenge
colleagues who
are not acting in
an ethical
manner.
 Mnemonic

Peter Piper Cried When Charles Darwin Died

Protection of participants Privacy Consent

Withdrawal Confidentiality Deception
Debriefing
When we carry out research we need people to take part,
these are called participants. It is important to use
suitable participants in your study.
The population is the group of people from whom the
sample is drawn. For example if the sample of
participants is taken from sixth form colleges in Luton,
the findings of the study can only be applied to that group
of people and not all sixth form students in the UK and
certainly not all people in the world because they are not
representative (they might have different characteristics )
 Want to be Geek!
Advantages: quickinand
my convenient
Disadvantage: unrepresentative
study? of
the target population.

Opportunity sampling is the sampling technique most

used by psychology students. It consists of taking the
sample from people who are available at the time the study
is carried out and fit the criteria you are looking for.
 Advantage: best chance of an
unbiased representative sample of
the target population.
Disadvantage: Difficult to do when
the target population is large.

This is a sampling technique which is defined as a sample in which

every member of the population has an equal chance of being
chosen. This involves identifying everyone in the target population
and then selecting the number of participants you need in a way that
gives everyone in the population an equal chance of being picked.
 Advantage: more representative of
the wider population than
opportunity sample as all
categories of the target population
are represented.
Disadvantages: difficult and time
consuming.

= 60% female
= 60% female
40% male
40% male

Stratified sampling involves classifying the population into categories and

then choosing a sample which consists of participants from each category in
the same proportions as they are in the population.
 Volunteers needed
I just love to for
psychological I’ve always wanted toSounds
Gotta do my
be helpful….study on rubbish…
be in a study…. hair..
learning

Advantages: convenient, no bias from

the experimenter in the choice of
participants.
Disadvantages: often unrepresentative,
biased on the part of the participants-
volunteers might be different from non-
volunteers.

Self selected sampling (or volunteer sampling) consists of participants becoming

part of a study because they volunteer when asked or in response to an advert.
 Pilot study
This is a smaller version of a study carried out before
the main research.
The aim is to identify any flaw in the study and carry
out the necessary modifications before doing the full
scale study.
 Research methods
Experimental methods Non-experimental methods

0 Laboratory experiments 0 Correlational studies

0 Field experiments 0 Observations
0 Natural experiments 0 Content analysis
0 Questionnaires
0 Interviews
 What is an experiment?
A research method in which:
0 There is an independent variable (IV) manipulated
by the researcher .
0 The effects of the IV on another variable are observed
or measured. This variable is called the dependent
variable (DV).
0 The participants are allocated randomly to the
conditions.
 Different types of
experiments
0 Laboratory experiment: it takes place in a
laboratory (a controlled environment) and the
researcher manipulates the IV
0 Field experiment takes place in the participants
natural environment and the researcher
manipulates the IV
0 Natural experiment: takes place in the participants’
natural environment the researcher does not
manipulate the IV
 Writing an experimental
hypothesis

The IV will affect the

DV
Before you write an hypothesis make sure you first
determine what are the IV and the DV.
 Null Hypothesis
0 It is a statement that the results will be due to chance
not to the manipulation of the IV

The IV will not affect

the DV
 EXAMPLE
0Any difference in recall of
words depending on the depth
of processing required is due
to chance.
 Directional non-directional

0 A directional hypothesis states the kind of

difference or relationship between the IV and the DV.
It is sometimes called one-tailed hypothesis.
0 A non-directional hypothesis simply predicts that
there will be a difference between conditions. It is
sometimes called two-tailed hypothesis.
 EXAMPLES
0Directional - processing for meaning
leads to better recall of words’.

0Non-directional - processing for

meaning affects recall of words’.
 Operationalisation
Many of the concepts used in hypothesis are abstract
(i.e. intelligence aggression), operationalising an
hypothesis is saying what you are going to observe , for
example if you are speaking about measuring
aggression you might count the number of punches
given by participants.
 Other variables…
The results can be influenced by other variables:
Extraneous variables
Participants characteristics
Situational variables
Experimenter effects

If you have a question on this topic, choose a variable

which is relevant to the study you are given in the
question.
There are 3 different ways to carry out the
experiment with participants. These are known as
Experimental Designs. Hmmm
…...

∙Independent measures design

∙Repeated measures design
∙Matched pairs design
Participants only take part in one condition of the experiment (2 separate groups)
Advantages: Avoids order effects. If a
person is involved in several tests they man
become
Words bored or tired . Less demand Pictures
characteristic as they do only one condition.
Disadvantages: More people are needed
than with the repeated measures design .
Differences between participants in the
groups may affect results, for example;
variations in age, sex or social background.
These differences are known as participant
variables.
 Advantages:
Participants take part in both conditions of the experiment (1 group)
Avoids the problem of participant variables. Fewer people are
needed.
Disadvantages:
Words Pictures
Order effects are more likely to occur.
Demand characteristic more likely as participants might guess
the aim as they take part in all the conditions.
 Counterbalancing
Alternating the order in which participants perform in
different conditions of an experiment. For example,
group 1 does ‘A’ then ‘B’, group 2 does ‘B’ then ‘A’ this is
to eliminate order effects.
Participants are matched in each condition for characteristics that may have an effect on
their performance. e.g. A memory test

Advantages: Reduces participant

variables.
1 Avoids order effects.
1
1 2 2 2
Disadvantages: Very time-consuming
trying to find closely matched pairs.
Impossible to match people exactly.
Requires more participants.
1
2
1
2
 • Advantages:
• Great ecological validity
• No demand characteristic, or bias due to sampling.
• Disadvantages: Natural
• Very difficult to replicate experiments
• Hard to infer cause and effect due to little control over extraneous
variables.
• Ethics: consent, deception, invasion of privacy.

• Advantages:
• Greater ecological validity than lab experiments
• If the participants are unaware of being tested less demand characteristic.
• Disadvantages: Field
• Less control so more possibility of influence of confounding variables and
more difficult to replicate.
experiments
• Ethics: consent, deception, invasion of privacy.

• Advantages:
• Strict control therefore more objectivity.
• Standardisation therefore easy to replicate.
• Disadvantages: Lab.
• Artificial conditions may produce artificial behaviour therefore experiments
lack of ecological validity
• Demand characteristic and experimenter bias
• Ethics: problems of deception, …. possible
Correlational Studies
0A way of establishing whether there is a
relationship between two variables
0Assessing the strength of that relationship
0unlike experiments, correlational studies
do not tell you about causal
relationships (we cannot say that it is
because one factor varies that the other
factor increases/ decreases)
 Correlational Studies
0Measure the two variables to
obtain two sets of paired scores
there is no IV or DV
0Analyse the relationship by:
0Drawing a scattergraph
0Calculating a correlation
coefficient
 Writing an hypothesis for a
correlation
Two tailed (non-directional) hypothesis:
There will be a correlation between variable 1 and
variable 2
One tailed (directional) hypothesis:
There will be a positive (or negative) correlation
between variable 1 and variable 2.
Null hypothesis:
There will not be a correlation between variable 1
and variable 2. any difference will be due to chance.
Correlation Coefficient
0A statistical method for assessing
the strength of a correlation
0The sign (+ or -) tells you the
direction of the correlation
0The number (between 0 and 1)
tells you the strength
 How strong is the relationship
between the two factors?
We calculate a coefficient The closer to 1 (+ or -) the
between -1 and +1 stronger the relationship

Strong Weak Weak Strong

-1 0 +1
No
perfect perfect
correlation
negative positive
correlation correlation
 Scattergraphs

When one variable When one

increases so does the variable
other variable increases the
other variable
decreases
 Advantages and disadvantages

Advantages Disadvantages
Can be used when an A cause and effect
experiment would be relationship between the two
unpractical or unethical. factors studied cannot be
If the correlation is established because other
significant then further factors might be involved
investigation is justified To get the AO2 marks you
need to give an example and
explain examples of factors
which might be influential.
 Observations
Non-participant observation
An observation that is conducted by
someone that is not part of the group
being observed.
0 Advantages: can be ethical but do
the Ps know that they are being
observed? Is it in a public place?
0 Disadvantages: the presence of the
observer can alter the group’s
behaviour. Impossible to replicate.
Participant observation
An observation that is conducted
by someone who is part of the
group being observed.
0 Advantages: high ecological
validity if observer is
undisclosed. Can give in-depth
and detailed information.
0 Disadvantages: difficult to
record data objectively,
impossible to replicate, ethical
problems of consent.
 Naturalistic observations
Structured observations:
Uses tables of pre-
determined categories of
behaviour and systematic
sampling. Two ways to
structure observation:
time or event sampling
Advantages: High ecological validity,
can be used as a preliminary study
before a more detailed research.
Unstructured
observations:
record what happens.
Disadvantages: cannot establish a cause-
effect relationship as no variable is
manipulated. No control over conditions
so replication is impossible. Ethical
problems of consent and invasion of
privacy.
Carrying out an observation
1. Determine the behavioural categories to be
observed
2. Train observers to classify the same behaviours in
the same categories (inter-observer reliability)
3. Carry out a pilot study
4. Carry out the observation
 Definition - Content
Analysis
A kind of observational study
in which the behaviour is
observed indirectly in written
or verbal material.
A detailed analysis is made of
books, TV, newspapers…
 How to conduct a content
analysis
0 Decide a sampling method (what material is to be
used for the research)
0 Decide the coding units
Then decide how you are going to carry out the
analysis:
1. Frequency - the number of times certain words or
themes come up (e.g. number of times that sexual
references come up in day-time television)
2. Amount of space devoted to a certain topic
Advantages
0 Likely to have high
ecological validity as the
material is not produced
for the research but as part
of normal activities (i.e. TV
& magazines)
0 Ethical as no participants
are used however in diary
analysis there might be an
issue of invasion of privacy
if no informed consent has
been sought.
0 Fairly cheap as no new
material has to be created
and no participants are
used.
Disadvantages
0 Very time consuming
0 Little or no control of
extraneous variables
0 Open to bias as the researcher
has to interpret the content in
order to fit the data in the
coding units and this depends
on the interpretation of the
material however this can be
partly overcome by using
more than one researcher and
establishing inter- rater
reliability.
0 Ethical issues could arise if
using diary analysis
(confidentiality and invasion
of privacy)
Self-reporting methods
Questionnaires
A list of standardised set of
questions is given to each
respondent; they give their
answers in writing
0 Closed questions
0 Open questions
Interviews
Questions are asked orally
0 Structured interviews has
predetermined questions.
0 Unstructured interviews:
questions are developed
as a response to the
answers given

Both interviews and questionnaires can yield

quantitative or qualitative data
Quantitative vs qualitative data
Quantitative data Qualitative data
Numerical data (in number) Data in words

▪ Easier to analyse. ▪ Rich in detail

▪ Can be processed using ▪ Can be analysed in more
statistical tests depth
▪ Easier to compare BUT
people or groups ▪ More difficult to analyse
▪ Difficult to compare
BUT people or groups
▪ Lacking in detail and
often superficial
 Types of Question
0 Open questions
0 Allow respondents to answer however they want
0 Generate qualitative data
0 Closed questions
0 Restrict respondent to a predetermined set of responses
0 Generate quantitative data
Types of Closed Question
0 Checklist
0 What is the highest academic qualification you hold?
0 G.C.S.E.s
0 A Levels
0 Batchelor Degree
0 Post-graduate Degree
0 Numerical (Likert) response scale
0 Psychology is the most interesting A-Level subject
Ranking scale

Rank the following activities according to how much time you spend
on them each day (1 = most time, 4 = least time)
• Talking face to face
• Talking on the telephone
• Text messaging
• Other (e.g. MSN, Facebook chat)
 Ways of Administering:
0 Face to face in a private/public place.

0 En masse to a group in a public setting.

0 Through the post.

0 Via the internet.

0 Over the telephone.

 Evaluating questionnaires
Strengths
0 Large numbers of
questionnaires can be
administered quickly: cost-
efficient and less time
consuming.
0 Easy to reach a wide range of
participants from target
population.
0 Completed privately and easily
made anonymous: more honest
(valid) responses should be
gained.
Limitations
0 Response rates are low, making
it hard to generalise the results
to the target population.
0 Response bias: only certain
types of people will return the
questionnaire.
0 Respondents may
misunderstand the questions,
leading to invalid data.
0 Participants might be
influenced by social desirability
(they will give answers which
make them look good).
 Evaluation of interviews
0 Closed questions give 0 Time consuming to
quantitative data, easy administer
to analyse using 0 The interviewer has to
statistical tests. be trained
0 Open questions gather 0 Open questions yield
qualitative data which is qualitative data which is
rich in detail and depth more difficult to analyse
and the interpretation
can be biased.
0 Participants can be
influenced by social
desirability.
 Practice questions
1. Evaluate laboratory experiments as a method to
collect data on memory.
2. Outline the 7 ethical issues.
3. What is the difference between field and natural
experiments?
4. Define validity and reliability.
5. Evaluate questionnaires.