GCSE PSYCHOLOGY UNIT 2 FURTHER RESEARCH METHODS

GCSE PSYCHOLOGY UNIT 2 FURTHER RESEARCH METHODS

GCSE PSYCHOLOGY UNIT 2 SURVEYS

SURVEYS SURVEY = is a method used for collecting information from a large number of people by asking them questions, either by using a questionnaire or in an interview

QUESTIONNAIRES QUESTIONNAIRE = is a set of standard questions about a topic that is given to all the participants in the survey A questionnaires is an example of a survey method that is used to collect large amounts of information from a group of people often spread out across the country

QUESTIONNAIRES The researcher designs a set of questions that people who take part in the survey (the respondents) will answer Respondents answer all the questions The researcher must try and ensure the answers given provide information relevant to the study

CLOSED QUESTIONS CLOSED QUESTIONS = are questions where the possible responses are fixed (e.g. yes or no options, tick options) Closed questions provide the researcher with data that is easy to collate and analyse Percentages can be worked out quickly A bar chart can display the responses graphically

CLOSED QUESTIONS There is little detail in the answers as respondents do not have the opportunity to explain their answers (so the researcher does not know why they have made the choice selected) Another problem can be that the respondents are not sure of the difference between often and sometimes for example The same thing happens with a yes, no, don t know option (respondents may choose don t know as they may not want to give a definite answer)

OPEN QUESTIONS OPEN QUESTION = is a question where the person answering can give any response they like The answers provide a lot of detail Respondents are able to explain their answers so feel less frustrated when they choose an answer that may not fit exactly to what they want to say Open questions provide lots of information about behaviour, often with explanations for why a person has produced a particular behaviour

OPEN QUESTIONS Problems can occur when open questions are used on a questionnaire as it is very hard to collate or group together all the responses into an overall pattern as each response is different Sometimes researchers have to produce categories of responses and fit the responses into one of them However, this will mean the detail and depth of the information from the respondents is lost as findings have been summarised

FURTHER ISSUES WHEN WRITING QUESTIONS Researchers must make sure questions are clear an unambiguous (something that only has one meaning) The words used in the question should not be sensitive as they may upset respondents and affect the honesty of their answers The meaning of the question must be obvious to the respondents (so, unambiguous questions will be clear in their meaning)

FURTHER ISSUES WHEN WRITING QUESTIONS Having unambiguous question will mean the respondents are sure of exactly what the question is asking and exactly how to give an answer to the question This will increase external validity of the questionnaire EXTERNAL VALIDITY = the results of the investigation can be said to apply to real-life behaviour. They are an accurate account of behaviour in the real world The researcher can be confident that the answers are a true account of the behaviour of the respondents

ADVANTAGES OF QUESTIONNAIRES A great deal of data can be collected quickly (this is why large organisations use questionnaires to get feedback quickly from their customers) Closed and open questions both have advantages and disadvantages, so it is often useful to have both types in a questionnaire Closed questions are easy to score Open questions provide detailed information Open questions allow respondents to explain their answer Questionnaires are ethical as people are fully aware that they are filling in a questionnaire and they know what questions are asking them

DISADVANTAGES OF QUESTIONNAIRES There is no way of checking the answers from the respondents are true. So the results of the questionnaire could be misleading for the researcher

INTERVIEWS INTERVIEW = is a method in which a researcher collects data by asking questions directly INERVIEWEE = the person/respondent who answers the questions in an interview

INTERVIEWS Interviews involve the researcher being in direct contact with the interviewee/respondent This is often face-to-face but could be over the telephone The researcher records the answers at the time of the interview or record them and play-back later to analyse Interviews are focused on a particular topic There are two types of interview (structured and unstructured)

STRUCTURED INTERVIEWS STRUCTURED INTERVIEW = an interview in which all the questions are pre-set, given in a fixed order and every interviewee is asked the same questions The researcher cannot ask an extra question based on an interesting point made by the interviewee Questions are usually closed but some may be open

UNSTRUCTURED INTERVIEWS UNSTRUCTURED INTERVIEW = an interview in which only the first question is set and all other questions are determined by the answers of the interviewee The topic is decided before the interview Each person interviewed will have a different set of questions It is the interviewee who directs the discussion

ADVANTAGES OF INTERVIEWS Interviews produce large amounts of data They provide information about people s thoughts and feelings that cannot be found through an observation Data from structured interviews can be collated and analysed easily Data from unstructured interviews are detailed and have ecological validity

DISADVANTAGES OF INTERVIEWS The researcher cannot be sure the interviewee is telling the truth (so data may not be accurate) Structured interviews lack detail and may be frustrating for: The interviewer, who wants to ask another question The interviewee, who wants to explain the answer given Data from unstructured interviews may be difficult to collate and analyse

GCSE PSYCHOLOGY UNIT 2 OBSERVATIONS

OBSERVATIONS OBSERVATION STUDY = this is a method of collecting information about behaviour by watching and recording people s actions Researchers want to be certain that the behaviour they are recording is normal behaviour The best way to do this is to see behaviour occur naturally NATURAL OBSERVATIONS = this is watching the behaviour of people who are in their usual environment The researcher does not interfere with the location at all However, researchers do make something happen so that the natural responses of people can be recorded See Hofling et al s (1966) study

HOFLING ET AL (1966) While on duty, a nurse received a phone call from a doctor in psychiatry who instructed the nurse to give medicine to a patient on the ward The researchers watched the nurse to see if she obeyed the illegal instruction (nurses are not allowed to give medicine if the instruction comes from a phone call) The setting was natural for the nurses (their normal place of work), so their behaviour was natural The researchers only changed a small part of the environment (introducing a phone call) so they could be there to watch what happened

SETTING UP AN OBSERVATION If you wanted to conduct an observation of bystander behaviour when someone drops their shopping, you could: Stand in the street hoping someone might drop their shopping (very unlikely to happen) Bump into someone and hope their shopping drops (not acceptable due to ethical issues) Ask a confederate to drop some shopping near to where you are in the street and record the actions of bystanders

OBSERVATION STUDY Sometimes an Observation Study is conducted in a laboratory setting This is not necessarily a laboratory, but a place where an observation is carried out and is organised by the researcher People being observed are brought into a special room where they can be seen and recorded (e.g. Bandura s Bobo Doll study) This may lack ecological validity as the people being observed know that the study is taking place

CATEGORIES OF BEHAVIOUR In order to make sure an accurate recording of behaviour can be made, researchers use categories of behaviour CATEGORIES OF BEHAVIOUR = the separate actions that are recorded as examples of the target behaviour In an observation of playground behaviour, the target behaviour is playground behaviour, but the observers would not know what they are looking for if that was the only information they had Behaviour categories are used to make it clear exactly how to record the actions that have been seen

EXAMPLES OF CATEGORIES OF BEHAVIOUR Below is an example of a tally chart showing categories of behaviours observed ( playground behaviour ) CATEGORIES OF BEHAVIOUR RUNNING HOPPING SKIPPING STANDING BOYS IIII IIII IIII II I II GIRLS III IIII III IIII III I

ADVANTAGES OF OBSERVATIONS Usually have very high ecological validity This is the most sensible method to find out about what people really do (especially social behaviours) They record whole behaviours that people really do produce regularly

DISADVANTAGES OF OBSERVATIONS Researchers can see and record behaviour, but they do not know why it occurred An observer might make a mistake when recording the behaviour (making the record sheet inaccurate) People being watched might become aware of this and change their behaviour (affecting the results) There are often ethical issues involved when people are not aware that they are being watched They can be difficult and time-consuming to carry out

INTER-OBSERVER RELIABILITY When carrying out an observation, the record of the behaviours that have been watched have to be accurate and the researchers need to make sure every time a behaviour occurs, it is recorded The problem is when the actual behaviour has happened it will not be seen again (so if missed, it will not get recorded) A solution to this problem is below: The researcher designs a record sheet with suitable behaviour categories Two observers each have a copy of this and observe the same behaviour/location at the same time for the same period of time; recording what they see At the end of the observation, they compare their record sheets

INTER-OBSERVER RELIABILITY If they have been recording consistently, they will have matching or very similar records of the observation This means that they have established inter-observer reliability If the two record sheets are very different, then both will be discarded as it would be impossible to work out which observer s record was the accurate one INTER-OBSERVER RELIABILITY = when this is high, the records made by more than one observer in a study are considered to be accurate because they match or are very similar to each other

GCSE PSYCHOLOGY UNIT 2 CASE STUDIES

CASE STUDIES CASE STUDY = Is an in-depth investigation of an individual, a small group or an organisation These can be carried out by professional psychologists who work in hospitals, prisons, or therapy centres Information is gathered from a number of sources (interview about a person s life, biographical details, work or school records, observations of a person, a test like a personality test)

CASE STUDIES Sometimes case studies are carried out to increase our understanding of human behaviour in general rather than of a particular person A case study will then be written up describing the individual The psychologist will then interpret the information using psychological theory to decide how to use this information If a case study is on a particular person then they may look what treatment should be offered OR it will be used to support or challenge a theory

CASE STUDIES A case study by Gregory and Wallace (1963) looked at a man who had been blind from infancy, but had his sight restored by an operation in adulthood They discovered that he was not affected by visual illusions They used this information to support his theory that visual perceptions in humans is affected by experience of the world They found that he did not think the vertical lines in the Ponzo Illusion were of different lengths (see next slide). Whereas most people believe that line B is longer

PONZO ILLUSION A B

CASE STUDIES ADVANTAGES OF CASE STUDIES They provide detailed information about individuals rather than collecting just a score from a test from a person They record behaviour over time so changes in behaviour can be seen A case study that shows us that a theory is not correct is very useful. It will encourage researchers to change the theory and make it more accurate

CASE STUDIES DISADVANTAGES OF CASE STUDIES Data collected can be very subjective. The method relies on the individual who is being studied remembering events and so these memories might not be accurate or reliable. The interpretations made by the psychologist could be biased and so the content of the case study might be unreliable Information from case studies cannot be applied to anyone else as it is unique There are ethical issues (confidentiality, right to withdraw, protection from harm)

GCSE PSYCHOLOGY UNIT 2 CORRELATION

CORRELATION CORRELATION = Is a technique used by researchers to establish the strength of a relationship between two variables RELATIONSHIP = Is a connection between two or more variables VARIABLE = Is a factor or thing that can be change it varies

CORRELATION In an experiment the relationship is a cause and effect one Changing one variable, like number of hours revision, has an effect on the other variable, like the grade in an exam

CORRELATION Sometimes the researcher does not change/manipulate a variable, instead two variables are measured and the researcher looks at how they are related to each other These variables could be behaviours that people produce (e.g. the number of cigarettes people smoked in a year and the number of colds they had in the same year) The variables could be qualities (e.g. how happy a person would rate themselves to be and how motivated they are at work) Psychologists use correlation to try to establish whether or not there is a pattern in the connection between two variables

CORRELATION Correlation is not a research method, but a statistical technique used to analyse the possible association between two variables Each variable will be measured as a score/value These scores can then be plotted onto a SCATTER GRAPH (a graph for representing correlations) Usually each person in the study will provide a pair of scores (one score for each variable being measured)

PLOTTING A SCATTER GRAPH To draw a scatter graph, the horizontal axis (xaxis) will represent one variable and the vertical axis (y-axis) represents the other variable For each pair of scores, you need to find the point on the x-axis (e.g. IQ) and the point on the y-axis (e.g. memory score) Once both points are found, a dot/cross is put where the two variables would meet Therefore, each dot/cross represents a pair of measurements

POSITIVE CORRELATION POSITIVE CORRELATION = Is a relationship between two variables in which, as the value of one variable increases, the value of the other variable also increases

POSITIVE CORRELATION The scatter graph on the previous slide shows that as one variable increases (hours sleep) the other variable increases also (test score) The positive correlation does not tell us what causes this relationship, only that the relationship can be identified

NEGATIVE CORRELATION NEGATIVE CORRELATION = Is a relationship between two variables in which, as the value of one variable increases, the value of the other variable also decreases

NEGATIVE CORRELATION The scatter graph on the previous slide shows that as one variable increases (hours of video games played) the other variable decreases (grade point average/test score)

NO CORRELATION NO CORRELATION = Is where there is no relationship between the two variables

PREDICTION PREDICTION = Is a statement about what will happen, made before the event occurs Viewing scatter graphs allows us to make predictions based on the type of correlation we have found (e.g. hours sleep and test score) and so identifying a relationship between the variables Therefore, when one variable has been identified (e.g. hours sleep), we can use that to predict or guess the likely measurement of the second variable (but we cannot say one variable causes the increase in the second variable, e.g. intelligence/iq would have a greater effect on test score than sleep)

CAUSE AND EFFECT The only method that can establish cause and effect relationship is an experiment This is due to extraneous variables (that could also be the causes) being controlled In a study where variables are just measured, it may be something else that causes the positive correlation (e.g. IQ)

CORRELATION ADVANTAGES OF CORRELATION They allow a researcher to see if two variables are connected in some way. So once a relationship has been found the researcher can use a different method to try to find the cause of the results (e.g. an experiment) They can be used when it would be impossible or unethical to carry out an experiment. E.g. researchers cannot force a person to smoke to see if they develop lung cancer. Although, plotting rates of smoking against lung cancer does tell us they are related. This knowledge can influence behaviour

CORRELATION DISADVANTAGES OF CORRELATION They do not indicate which of the two variables caused the relationship to occur In order for correlation to be informative, there does need to be a large amount of data collected by the researcher for each variable so that the possible pattern can be seen