ATAR Notes: Forum
VCE Stuff => VCE Science => VCE Mathematics/Science/Technology => VCE Subjects + Help => VCE Psychology => Topic started by: studying_hard on October 04, 2010, 07:29:00 pm
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Hey could someone just quickly tell me what exactly they are learning in regard to research methods for the exam?
Thankyou
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sorry to add a question onto yours but it's similar.
just did the 2006 vcaa and a question about design flaw of repeated measures design had the answer
'counterbalancing' as a method to overcome flaws.
i have not heard of that once in class or from anyone else, is that term/method still used or needed to know?
and for research methods you definitely need to know:
advantages and flaws of study designs
all ethical principles
p-value
IvandDV
how to write an operational hypothesis
general design of a study (ie. what should be included in the discussion or conclusion section of a experiment)
types of sampling
that's all i can remember right now.
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Counterbalancing is a pretty common term and you'll need it (since the study design in 2006 is the same). I'm sure I've read it in multiple text books and from various lectures I've been to.
Counterbalancing: placing half the participants in the experimental condition first, and the other half in the control condition first; thereby balancing the order effects equally between both conditions.
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I think the other thing to know is that Research Methods questions are exclusively case study questions. So when it comes to studying, don't just try remembering the theory, but try to think about research methods in the context of actually doing research.
I would imagine that you might need to know how to reference APA style as well.
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I suppose this belongs here.
in the exam when we get a question asking 'can the results of this experiment be generalised' what exactly should we focus on in terms of assessing this? the accuracy of the sample? the p value? i'm not sure how to reliably answer these questions
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I suppose this belongs here.
in the exam when we get a question asking 'can the results of this experiment be generalised' what exactly should we focus on in terms of assessing this? the accuracy of the sample? the p value? i'm not sure how to reliably answer these questions
both I believe. For the results to be generalisable to the population, the sample that was selected must be representative (of the population from which it was drawn), and the p value must also be <.05.
The p-value: is the probability that the differences in the results of the control and experimental groups are due to chance alone (not the effect of the I.V on the D.V)
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I have my own question; could somebody please explain what the hawthorne effect is, and how it differs from other similar extraneous variables. Is it another name for a Self-fulfilling prophecy?
I have to be honest, I'm finding research methods actually quite a bit more complicated then I initially expected.
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sorry to add a question onto yours but it's similar.
just did the 2006 vcaa and a question about design flaw of repeated measures design had the answer
'counterbalancing' as a method to overcome flaws.
i have not heard of that once in class or from anyone else, is that term/method still used or needed to know?
and for research methods you definitely need to know:
advantages and flaws of study designs
all ethical principles
p-value
IvandDV
how to write an operational hypothesis
general design of a study (ie. what should be included in the discussion or conclusion section of a experiment)
types of sampling
that's all i can remember right now.
you also need to know:
-the definition of the experimental and control groups, and the differences between them.
-the definition of the independent and dependent variables, and the differences between them.
-you must be able to explain what seperates an experiment from other types of psychological studies.
-particular extraneous/confounding variables that may exist (and effect the D.V) in experiments.
-the differences between descriptive and inferential statistics.
-in regards to descriptive stats: particular measures of central tendency(e.g. mean, median and mode) and variance (e.g. range)
<-whoosh
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I have my own question; could somebody please explain what the hawthorne effect is, and how it differs from other similar extraneous variables. Is it another name for a Self-fulfilling prophecy?
I have to be honest, I'm finding research methods actually quite a bit more complicated then I initially expected.
Hawthorne effect states that a person will act more effectively if they are aware that they are partaking in an experiment. i.e when studying the effect of light on work productivity... if they were told so they'd simply act more productive.
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in regards to the double-blind procedure, is this description of a research assistant valid:
(When using the double-blind procedure) A research assistant is usually employed to allocate the participants into the groups, and may be used to undertake the experiment as a proxy for the experimenter. Additionally the research assistant may also be used to collate and interpret the data (to eliminate experiementer bias)
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btw, do we need to know about correlation?
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btw, do we need to know about correlation?
have you looked over any practice exams yet? I would advise you to just look at section 3 of the short answers as there's not much variation from those questions (except the experiment changes of course). I don't know what correlation is, but if you can find it to be related to questions in practice exams, know it I guess. as my legal teacher has said far too many times: "if it's in the text book, it's examinable" (I question whether that's 100% true)
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thanks for that mini :)
and i haven't seen any questions on exams yet specifically about correlation but our teacher did drum into us that you need to know it, it's pretty basic so may as well just in case.
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btw, do we need to know about correlation?
have you looked over any practice exams yet? I would advise you to just look at section 3 of the short answers as there's not much variation from those questions (except the experiment changes of course). I don't know what correlation is, but if you can find it to be related to questions in practice exams, know it I guess. as my legal teacher has said far too many times: "if it's in the text book, it's examinable" (I question whether that's 100% true)
yes I have done quite a few prac exams for psych, and no there has not been anything on correlation, however it does exist within my textbook and A+ notes book. If it is not something I have to prepare for then excellent.
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btw, do we need to know about correlation?
Do you mean positive negative correlation?
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btw, do we need to know about correlation?
Do you mean positive negative correlation?
yeah that's part of it. Although I'm also referring to the strength of the correlation.
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I have my own question; could somebody please explain what the hawthorne effect is, and how it differs from other similar extraneous variables. Is it another name for a Self-fulfilling prophecy?
I have to be honest, I'm finding research methods actually quite a bit more complicated then I initially expected.
Hawthorne effect states that a person will act more effectively if they are aware that they are partaking in an experiment. i.e when studying the effect of light on work productivity... if they were told so they'd simply act more productive.
Well, it's not necessarily even told. All you need to induce the Hawthorne Effect is that the people are aware that they are in some sort of experiment or testing salutation. It's the perceived uniqueness and undue attention that increases productivity, results etc...
A Self-fulfilling prophecy is different - it refers to the fact if a person has a belief that a particular result will happen, then the person will have a tendency to unconsciously work towards achieving that result. Where that can become problematic in a result is if the participant has a belief on what the results of the experiment will be.
btw, do we need to know about correlation?
It's not on the current study design (it was in the one beforehand though). Being the last year, I don't think you will get a correlation question.
Nonetheless, it's a rather easy concept to grasp (although it can be really complex, really quick). Basically what a correlation is that there is this relationship between two or more variables. How it works on a conceptual basis is that say a particular person has a certain number of characteristic x (say age) and a certain number of characteristic y (say number of sexual partners per year). What you can do is to plot that data onto a graph (a Cartesian one, that you should be familiar with from doing mathematics). If you have a large enough set of data, what you can is plot all that data together and using either your eyeballs, or some statistical techniques (such as Person's Product-Moment Correlation), you can say whether there is a positive relationship, negative relationship or no relationship between characteristic x and characteristic y (so in our example, there is a positive relationship, negative relationship or no relationship between age and number of sexual partners in a year).
What a positive relationship means is that there is a tendency for those with high of characteristic x to also have high of characteristic y. A negative relationship means that there is a tendency for those with high of characteristic x to have a low of characteristic y. No relationship is that there is no tendency or no link at all between characteristic x and characteristic y. It's probably at good at this point to point out that correlation is obviously not an experimental technique. Consequently, you can not form a cause-effect relationship i.e. Correlation does not imply Causation.