I wrote a research report for that choice on section C of the sample questions. Is it enough to get 15 marks? Have i written too much on statistical significant and focused to much on p-value and should write something else there? Is that an ethical issue? My report is as follows:
Research Hypothesis: It was predicted that third-year psychology students from Sunshine University would perform 5% better on a recall test of 40 psychological terms if participants had normal sleep, as opposed to minimal or no sleep.
The IV for this experiment is the amount of sleep.
The DV for this experiment is the amount of 40 psychological terms recalled.
The results of the experiment show there was very little decline in recall of 40 psychological terms if normal sleep was allowed, or a very little decline between trial one and trial two of group A. However, the results were found to be not statistically significant as the p-value for the difference between trial one and trial two were 0.94, which is higher than the 0.05 level of significance set for this experiment. This means that there was a 94% chance that the change in the DV was due to chance factors, not the IV, as the participants were allowed a normal sleep.
The difference between the recall of 40 psychological terms for group B was found to be statistically significant as the p-value was calculated at 0.05 and was equal to the level of significant set for this experiment.
The difference between the recall of 40 psychological terms for Group B was also found to be statistically significant. This is as the p-value was also found to be 0.001 and thus less that the set level of significance.
Differences between group A and B on trial two were found to be not statistically significant as the p-value was calculated at 0.06. Differences between groups A and C were found to be statistically significant as the p-value was calculated at 0.001. As were the differences between group B and C with a calculated p-value of 0.001.
Ethical issues include voluntary participation. This is as participants were given extra marks on their Psychology final score. This may cause some students to participate involuntarily out of a want for extra marks. This means that participation was not a completely voluntary process.
The research hypothesis was found to be supported as there was found to be a statistical significant difference of more that 5% on recall on trial two between group A and Group C and group A and Group B. From this it can be concluded that partial and total sleep deprivation cause an adverse effect on the recall of information. These results could not be generalized to the population of third-year psychology students at Sunshine University as convenience sampling was used, as participants volunteered. Thus there was not an adequate attempt to make the sample representative of the population.
Any help would be appreciated.