OCR G541 10 mark questions help

Hi everyone, I'm taking the G541 exam (psychological investigations) on the 22nd May and I'm okay with the paper except from the big 10 mark questions. Particularly the ones that are "evaluate the reliability and validity of the DV".

I get really stuck on these questions, which i shouldn't, but if anyone can give me some help that'd be great

Thanks

Evaluation is quite easy, I'm an A2 student about to re-take G542 and take G544 this June.
For the 10 markers, choose AT LEAST 3 evaluative points you could make:
-Ecological Validity (Natural (Quazi), lab setting, mundane realism (How "realistic" the tasks are) etc)
-Participants (generalisability, sample bias etc)
-Ethics (Consent, psychological/physiological harm, right to withdrawal, deceit, etc)
-There are others which I can't remember right now, but these are the basics.

Remember to PEE; no not urinate - Point, Evidence, Explain.. such as:
Milgram's study on Obedience is highly unethical. They deceived the participants by telling them they were taking part in a learning task, however they were
actually induced to deliver potentially fatal electric shocks onto the "learner", and were tested on their obedience. This is unethical as the participants became highly stressed
from this as they believed they were causing severe harm to another being.

Furthermore, remember the difference between Validity and Reliability;
-Validity: The measure that measures how well the measure is measuring, basically how effectively the study measures what they are finding out.
-Reliability: The measure of how replicable, how easily can the study be performed again?

This isn't perfect, and I'm not an A* student, but this is how I coped with these. Just remember to keep explaining everything you say, pretend the examiner is a toddler.

Hi everyone, I'm taking the G541 exam (psychological investigations) on the 22nd May and I'm okay with the paper except from the big 10 mark questions. Particularly the ones that are "evaluate the reliability and validity of the DV".

I get really stuck on these questions, which i shouldn't, but if anyone can give me some help that'd be great

Thanks

these questions are actually the hardest questions in the paper. I'm not great at it myself, but if it asked you for validity and reliability, evaluate the reliability of the findings, method, participants (control group) if you were to replicate will you get same results, are conditions standardised, etc.. for validity, talk about ecological validity, can you relate it to real life and does it show a true picture etc. i'm not good at explaining LOL, but I hope this helps. i think its quite an easy paper worth 30% of the final AS grade, especially compared to G542, but I just need help on the hypothesis. if you know them can you just briefly explain them to me? thanks

They really are! Thanks for your help i'm taking that on-board I can help with hypotheses i get those haha!

There are your two main types of hypothesis, your alternate and your null.

The alternate hypothesis expects that something will happen. E.g. there will be a significant correlation between....

The null hypothesis states that nothing will happen E.g. there will be no significant correlation

Now from the alternate you get two types braching off. These are one tailed and two tailed hypotheses. A one tailed hypothesis states the DIRECTION of expected results. E.g. there will be a significant POSITIVE correlation. The two tailed does NOT predict the direction.

Hope this help

is that really it :O - wow..thanks! haha

and i cannot seem to find my psychology book right about now, but soon ill post a sample answer i have written for a 10 mark answer and i got 8 marks, so you can get an idea of what you need to include

hey please post it!!!!!!!!

I am also re-taking this paper next week, not sure if this will entirely help but for our G544 exam our teacher gave us this sheet; 12 steps to writing an A2 procedure and I think basically if you follow this then you should be fine as long as you remember to evaluate each point you make. The sheet basically suggests the following and I have also added various points you may consider to help you;

For full marks your procedure must be fully replicable, ethical and practical.

Check: Go back to the research question you have chosen and any instructions you have been given. eg; are you being asked to use independant measures? Are you being asked to collect ordinal data?

Practical: Make sure your proposal is going to be practical and time efficient. You should be describing a simple procedure that is easy to follow using realistic timings, sample etc. REMEMBER you will impress the examiner with the precision of your description, not the complexity of your ideas.

Sample: Who are the participants (two or three bits of detail), how many, where were they sampled (city centre, park etc) and how were they sampled (opportunity, random etc)?

Where: Where is the research taking place? How will the participants get to the setting? How will the participants know where the setting is? Do they go individually or are you testing them in groups? (obviously this will not apply to all types of questions that they ask eg; IF you were conducting an observation then participants may not be aware of their taking part in the study. If you take the example above 'Describe and Evaluate a suitable procedure for an observational study' you could say: I chose a covert observation because participants do not know that they are being watched therefore this increases validity as they are more likely to produce natural behaviour as oppose to being socially desirable and producing demand characteristics.

Experimental Design: Are you using repeated measures, independent measures or matched pairs? If you are using the latter two, how are your participants allocated into conditions? When will each condition be conducted? How will conditions be scored and compared? Exactly how are IVS manipulated and DVS measured? (Sometimes the question may specifically ask you to describe and evaluate another way in measuring the DV or may ask you to use one of the above designs.

Observation: What categories are you observing? Are you using overt or covert observations? Are you using time sampling, event sampling or point sampling? How is data collected? ( questionnaires? coding schemes?)
Draw a sketch of your observation grid to make it clear.

Correlation: If you are conducting a correlation, you will ONLY be using repeated measures (each participant needs two scores). How is each data for each variable collected? Remember you could use a test, observation or self - report, but the simplest ideas are the most effective.

Self-report: If you are conducting a questionnaire or interview, how many questions will you use? Describe these questions and give at least three examples. Make sure closed questions show the options/ratings availabe to participants even if it is just yes/no. How long will participants be given to complete questionnaires? How are they completed and how are they returned? How will questionnaires be scored?

Instructions: What exactly should be done? What instructions should be given to participants? Remember to include exact timings eg; times for a test in an experiment, to complete a questionnaire in a self-report, or time (minutes or seconds) participants were observed for. This should be step by step and detailed.

Equipment: What equipment will you need for your procedure? (Pens, papers, stopwatches etc)

Data collection and analysis: Is the data qualitative or quantitative? What level of data will you produce (ordinal, nominal etc.) How will your data be analysed? (Chi sq, Spearmans rho etc.)

Ethics: How have you ensured that your procedure is ethical? eg; are participants protected from harm, have they been told of their withdrawal rights? If you deceived participants at the start of the study, have you debriefed them at the end?

Remember to always refer back to the question (context) when possible. You also don't need to include all of the above but if you vaguely mention them; write one or two sentences on each but put emphasis on the question itself eg; if it asks you to describe and evaluate a suitable experiment then talk more about the experiment; sample, design, data collection, ethics, equipment etc but no need to mention observation, correlation however you could always write a sentence saying another suitable method for this experiment could be ....?


I hope this helps I also have some top band model answers for the 10 marker questions that our college has put on our school website which I could upload onto here if you wish? Let me know.

I am also re-taking this paper next week, not sure if this will entirely help but for our G544 exam our teacher gave us this sheet; 12 steps to writing an A2 procedure and I think basically if you follow this then you should be fine as long as you remember to evaluate each point you make. The sheet basically suggests the following and I have also added various points you may consider to help you;

For full marks your procedure must be fully replicable, ethical and practical.

Check: Go back to the research question you have chosen and any instructions you have been given. eg; are you being asked to use independant measures? Are you being asked to collect ordinal data?

Practical: Make sure your proposal is going to be practical and time efficient. You should be describing a simple procedure that is easy to follow using realistic timings, sample etc. REMEMBER you will impress the examiner with the precision of your description, not the complexity of your ideas.

Sample: Who are the participants (two or three bits of detail), how many, where were they sampled (city centre, park etc) and how were they sampled (opportunity, random etc)?

Where: Where is the research taking place? How will the participants get to the setting? How will the participants know where the setting is? Do they go individually or are you testing them in groups? (obviously this will not apply to all types of questions that they ask eg; IF you were conducting an observation then participants may not be aware of their taking part in the study. If you take the example above 'Describe and Evaluate a suitable procedure for an observational study' you could say: I chose a covert observation because participants do not know that they are being watched therefore this increases validity as they are more likely to produce natural behaviour as oppose to being socially desirable and producing demand characteristics.

Experimental Design: Are you using repeated measures, independent measures or matched pairs? If you are using the latter two, how are your participants allocated into conditions? When will each condition be conducted? How will conditions be scored and compared? Exactly how are IVS manipulated and DVS measured? (Sometimes the question may specifically ask you to describe and evaluate another way in measuring the DV or may ask you to use one of the above designs.

Observation: What categories are you observing? Are you using overt or covert observations? Are you using time sampling, event sampling or point sampling? How is data collected? ( questionnaires? coding schemes?)
Draw a sketch of your observation grid to make it clear.

Correlation: If you are conducting a correlation, you will ONLY be using repeated measures (each participant needs two scores). How is each data for each variable collected? Remember you could use a test, observation or self - report, but the simplest ideas are the most effective.

Self-report: If you are conducting a questionnaire or interview, how many questions will you use? Describe these questions and give at least three examples. Make sure closed questions show the options/ratings availabe to participants even if it is just yes/no. How long will participants be given to complete questionnaires? How are they completed and how are they returned? How will questionnaires be scored?

Instructions: What exactly should be done? What instructions should be given to participants? Remember to include exact timings eg; times for a test in an experiment, to complete a questionnaire in a self-report, or time (minutes or seconds) participants were observed for. This should be step by step and detailed.

Equipment: What equipment will you need for your procedure? (Pens, papers, stopwatches etc)

Data collection and analysis: Is the data qualitative or quantitative? What level of data will you produce (ordinal, nominal etc.) How will your data be analysed? (Chi sq, Spearmans rho etc.)

Ethics: How have you ensured that your procedure is ethical? eg; are participants protected from harm, have they been told of their withdrawal rights? If you deceived participants at the start of the study, have you debriefed them at the end?

Remember to always refer back to the question (context) when possible. You also don't need to include all of the above but if you vaguely mention them; write one or two sentences on each but put emphasis on the question itself eg; if it asks you to describe and evaluate a suitable experiment then talk more about the experiment; sample, design, data collection, ethics, equipment etc but no need to mention observation, correlation however you could always write a sentence saying another suitable method for this experiment could be ....?


I hope this helps I have attached below some top band model answers that the Psychology department had uploaded onto our college website which may be of use to you.

Ten mark reliability and validity (1).odt
Ten mark one other way to measure DV (1).doc
Self report ten marks (1).doc
Observation ten mark answer (1).odt
Experimental procedure 2.odt
Experiment 10 mark answer.docx
Correlation ten marks (1).doc

this is amazing.. THANK YOU EVER SO MUCH!

Ooo yes please can you upload it would be a huge help!!

I've uploaded them.

this is amazing.. THANK YOU EVER SO MUCH!

Awh No problem, glad it is helpful.

You do realise this is all a2 level stuff not as and g541!