Psychology

Short answer questions

Research methods

Psychology

Q1
What is a research question?
A research question is a question that
indicates the scope of the research and what
it hopes to answer.

Psychology

Q2
What should a research question provide?
Some idea of what you are going to study and
why.

Psychology

Q3
What is the function of the hypothesis?

To provide the researcher with a clear

statement that can be accepted or rejected as
a result of carrying out the research.

Psychology

Q4
What is longitudinal research?
Research that may last for months or even
many years.

Psychology

Q5
What three factors decide which test you choose?
Is it a test of correlation or difference?
Is it nominal, ordinal or interval data?
Is it independent or repeated design (if you
are testing for a difference)?

Psychology

Q6
For which tests do you have to know design?
Tests of difference.

Psychology

Q7
Which test would you choose if you had ordinal
data and independent design?
The Mann-Whitney U test.

Psychology

Q8
When do you use counterbalancing?
In the research design known as repeated
measures.

Psychology

Q9
What is order effect?
This is where the order in which the
participant performs tasks could have an
effect on the findings.

Psychology

Q10
What is the fatigue effect?
When a participants performance is worse in
the second condition because they are tired.

Psychology

Q11
What are ordinal data?
Data that are placed into an order.

Psychology

Q12
What does interval data not tell us?
It may not tell us why people behave the way
they do.

Psychology

Q13
How would the decision on the design in a piece
of research control variables?
It would control participant variables or order
effects.

Psychology

Q14
What is the purpose of descriptive statistics?
To describe data and identifying patterns or
relationships.

Psychology

Q15
Which hypothesis does an inferential statistical
analysis tell you about?
It tells the probability value for the null
hypothesis.

Psychology

Q16
If the probability of the results being due to
chance is less than 5%, what is the probability of
the results being due to the independent
variable?
More than 95%.

Psychology

Q17
What is a Type 1 error?
Accepting the operationalised hypothesis
despite the possibility of this being due to
chance.

Psychology

Q18
What might cause a Type 2 error?
Poor research design.
Using too stringent significance levels.

Psychology

Q19
How do researchers commonly try to control
variables?
By using standardised procedures.

Psychology

Q20
What is situational bias?
Different procedures or situations will have a
different effect on the participants.