OCR A2 Psychology: G544: Approaches and Research Methods - Monday 17th June 2013

Can anyone tell me if these definitions are correct please

A one tailed hypothesis not only predicts that the Iv will have an effect on the Dv but it also predicts the direction in which the effect will go i.e. revision improves exam performance whereas a two tailed hypothesis only predicts that the Iv will have an effect on the Dv i.e. revision will affect exam performance?

correct!

This may seem like a silly question but how can I revise for part A? lol

thankss! and I don't know haha my teacher just gave us loads of Section B questions like a-e and that was one of them! it is definitely a weird question and I doubt something like that would come up. thanks for your answer

Can someone give me an example of what a experimental hypothesis looks like please?

How would write a 12 mark question asking Discuss the the strengths and weaknesses of situation explanation of behavior (using examples of research) - Jan 2013 paper

Jan 2013 paper had experiments in A and B asked about reliability or situational explanations so is it likely it won't come up in this one?

Is it likely that an approach will come up? I'm only revising those in detail

Okay, I'm going over the strengths and weaknesses of the debates. Feel free to correct me or add more stuff.

Nature:
- Scientific studies - Brunner, Ohman
- Useful application - determined, seperate criminals - Brunner, Ohman,
- Unethical - determined, cannot change behaviour - Brunner, - labelling
- Limited usefulness - cannot cure behaviour - Brunner.

Nurture:
- Useful application - can cure behaviour - Farrington, Weatherburn
- More ethical and supports free will - change behaviour - Weatherburn
- Less scientific, no scientific proof - Asch, Nemeth
- Ethnocentric - Asch, Weatherburn


Determinism:
- same as nature
- same as narture

Free will:
- same as nurture
- same as nurture


Reductionism:
- scientific, helps psychology become a Science, establish cause and effect - Brunner, Ohman
- Useful, focuses on one factor, specific cure - Weatherburn, Asch
- behaviour is more complex, misleading conclusions - Brunner, Yochelson
- Low validity, limited practical application - Farrington

Holism:

- Takes account of many factors, high validity - accurate conclusions - Sutherland, Raine
- Useful application - Sutherland, Dooley
- Time consuming - Sutherland
- Less Scientific - Sutherland, Dooley

Okay, now I'm bored. Some one add to this. Let's make a chain.

how would you answer this question

c) Some individual differences research studies involve standardised tests on large numbers of people and attempt to make statistical generalisations from quantitative date. Discuss the ethical issues that may arise from such studies (8)

really confused about what to write!

Good points - especially nature and nurture, thanks ... just the last one about holism has me confused, as i understand holism takes a wide range of factors but how has Dooley or Sutherland done so, because Sutherland has no tests as its theory and Dooley just looked at statistics on suicide rates. Im not criticizing you btw, i just wanna see where your coming from because i might be wrong? lol

Its either one tailed, two tailed, null or alternative -

Participants who ______ will be significantly better/ worse as _____ then participants who _____ (1 tailed)


2 tailed : there will be a significant difference between participants who ______ then those who ______

Alternative: Im not sure on as It seems similar to one tailed, so someone help me there???

Null: No significant difference between _____ and _____


Hope that helps, but correct me if im wrong plz...

I think it wouldn't be much different from how you'd go about generating a practical sample for any other method; you could use random sampling with a college database, you could use self-selected with adverts around a college or city centre, as long as you gave examples and details of what it says etc, you could use opportunity on a busy high street or college common room, or a simple strat. sample using a database from a school/college/workplace as long as it's feasible and you really could do it if you were conducting research.

I personally would use opportunity with a college common room, as it is the most simply explained and suitable to this method.

To make the method realistic and practical you just need to have made every major decision you can account for (which makes it fully replicable) and you need to keep it ethical, addressing ethical guidelines (which is as easy as saying "each participant would sign a consent form which reminds them of their rights and assures them they will be protected from harm" etc). You also need to provide specific details and examples of sample (age, size, gender), procedure (what you tell them, how much time they are given to complete the interview/questionnaire, how it is conducted, is it structured, semi-/un-structured) as well as examples of questions (on any written self report you should try to give an example of 4 question types e.g open, closed, VAS, likert...). If you were conducting interviews you explain whether it is structured, semi-structured, unstructured and what that means. You would explain how you collect the data, it's probably best to say you would record it and transcribe it afterwards, then you would have to consider how you analyse the data, would you conduct a content analysis? this would mean classifying data based on standardised conditions, for example from the data gained in an interview about fear of crime, I might list words associated with fear and anxiety, and count how many times they appear in each answer.

For section A question 2, my college uses an acronym remembered as S.T.E.A.M. C.I.T.I.E.S ; which is good to consider for any method, omitting what isn't appropriate. You may well have one of your own, + it's late in the day to try memorize a new one, but here ours is anyway:

Sample (age, gender) Controls used
Technique (sampling technique) Instructions given
Ethics Timings (e.g 10 mins for each task)
Allocation (to groups e.g. random) Independent variable
Materials used Scorings (i.e dependent variable)

it's not in the right order, but its a good reminder of everything, or its equivalent.

+ to the person asking how long it should be, the whole paper is 80 marks in 90 minutes, which is just over a mark a minute, so aim to spend on bigger questions as many minutes as there are marks - however this is not a good rule for the whole paper, as 4 markers can take 2 minutes and 8 markers can take a little over 10 ( although im trying to cut my time down)

Those were the only ones I could think of for Holism. But Dooley also recognised the fact that many prisoners had a psychotic illness before they entered the prison, which may have contributed to the suicide. Therefore, they took account of their biological disorders too, not just their situational factors - overcrowding in prison.

Sutherland was researched before and then the theory developed. But the theory itself takes a whole range of factors into account. E.g. it takes behaviourism into account saying we learn through interaction with other people, but it also takes individual factors into account i.e. if we disagree with the law, we are more likely to break it.

It's a hopeful argument. c: If you have any points, add please. That'd be great ;D