OCR Psychology G541 23rd May 2012

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I'm looking for the same thing as the previous question and also wondering whether anyone has any idea about what's actually likely to come up and if there is a resource stating each method etc and the strengths, disadvantages etc of it?

Thanks.

my teacher told us to use holah.co.uk
i personally think it is better than my college notes, as my teacher is harldy here, she has not been here for about 2 or 3 weeks and its so near to the exams, but i dont know if you'll find it useful, i think its useful for both the retake and core studies, especially for analysing the approaches for the core studies. :smile:

Reply 21

werty321

Original post by pilotantsta

Thats right! :smile:

One advantage of time sampling is that it is less intensive as event sampling as not as much concentration is needed
One disadvantage with time sampling is that some behaviours will not be recorded meaning the observation could be missing some key results

What is an advantage and disadvantage of Lab experiments?

Advantages:
can be higly controlled
Can show what effect a single variable(independant) has on the variable you are measuring known as dependant
Easy to replicate
It is easy to set up

disadvantages
lacks ecological validity
can give rise to demand characteristics
ethincal issues such as decieving people and consent

Reply 22

werty321

ok i think this time we will be asked to design an experiment or something and these marks are usually worth like 8 or 10 marks, heres a typical question:

a psychologiist wishes to find how students spend their free time. outline how the psychologist can do this and state the advantages and disadvantages. (10)

Reply 23

Asyfa

What is most likely to come up..in terms of self report? observation ..correlation and expereiment??

coz jan 12 paper had correlation so.. i was think would that come up??

some1 help

thanks

Reply 24

werty321

Original post by Asyfa

What is most likely to come up..in terms of self report? observation ..correlation and expereiment??

coz jan 12 paper had correlation so.. i was think would that come up??

some1 help

thanks

any of the three out of four could come up,
i would revise all of them, my advice is to just read everything on holah for all four (self report, correlation, experiment, observation)
also make sure you have like a basic structure set in yout mind for designeing an experiment or questionnaire as such. my it should always relate to material they give you and it should include:

for example for an experimetn you should include:
1)experimental design (field, quasi, laboratory)
2)sample e.g. random,self selecting
3) how are you going to get your participants like advertise in newspapers or such
3)if its an experiment what design (repeated measures or independant measures)
4)taking care of ethical issues
5) evaluating your experiment e.g if its lab exp it lacks ecological validity.

oohh this can go on forever, just look at the marks, it guides you on how much to write, plus we had this examiner come into our college and she said that you cannot get better than just a pass untill you get into the habit of relating your answers to the given material.lol theres soo much just within experiments, and to think there is 4 investigation methods we need to learn..

link to holah
http://www.holah.co.uk/page/investigations/

Reply 25

eselle

I'm also taking this exam tomorrow as a retake, I got a D in January and was only 1 mark off a C so I thought it would be useful to boost my grade up a bit.
From my predictions, I think that observation will defiantly come up since it wasn't in the january exam and I'm guessing that correlation won't come up since it's been in the past few papers, I might be wrong so don't rely on me and play it safe by revising them all :smile:

Also, remember to always contextualise by relating back to the original question all the time, even in doubt still relate back. That's where I screwed up most in the last exam and hopefully I won't forget this time!
Good luck everyone~

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 26

pilotantsta

Original post by eselle

Yeah its really important to link back to the question which they have given you as if you dont you lose like half the marks, but my teacher said you only need to contextualise your answer when it asks for example it might say 'outline an advantage and disadvantage of time sampling in THIS STUDY" therefore you must link the advantages and disadvantages back to the study they give you. But i will probably contextualise my answer for all the Q's :wink:

Reply 27

ke95

What's the difference between the alternate hypothesis and a one-tailed hypothesis?! Could someone give me an example please? Thanks :smile:

Reply 28

werty321

Original post by ke95

What's the difference between the alternate hypothesis and a one-tailed hypothesis?! Could someone give me an example please? Thanks :smile:

i've not learnt the alternate... but heres what i've learnt
there is the experimental hypothesis, and within the experimental there is directional(one tailed) where you state the effect or relationship (e.g :tongue:

eople take longer to state the colour in the morning than in the afternoon)and the second one under experimental is non direction which is when you say there will be an effect but dont state what the effect is (eg there will be difference in how long people take to state the colour in the morning than in the afternoon)

the second type is null where you say there will be no difference or effect (e.g: there is no difference between the time taken for people to state the colour in the morning and after noon)

does that make sense lol, coz thats in my booklet..

Reply 29

Asyfa

How do you answer these questions?

A researcher wishes to conduct an observation of students’ use of their free time in college.
Describe and evaluate a suitable procedure for this observation. [10]

Reply 30

Asyfa

Original post by werty321

Thank you soo much! . .But im still scared abt this exam for some reason!

Reply 31

pilotantsta

Original post by Asyfa

Give a lot of detail and create a procedure which is replicable, so mention things like would you do time or event sampling, what is your criteria, what time of day would you do the study, how many observers, where in the school, will it be covert or participant observation, i would then evaluate it by saying the strengths and weakness for example a strength could be by having the observers in the canteen they can see a variety of peoples behaviour and a weakness could be however we wont know what people behaviour is on the corridors or social areas. You could also say that it would be high in reliability by making sure all the researchers understand the different categories of behaviour and interpret them in the same way establishing inter rater reliability. Lastly you could argue validity is reduced as the researchers are only looking at a specific time of day e.g lunch time therefore students may use their phones differently at different times of the day reducing validity.

Hope that helped

Reply 32

werty321

Original post by Asyfa

yh these are where people lose marks, well i do anyways..so for this you say:

what observation (can be cover or overt, state the advantages or disadvantages of whichever one you use)
is it structure or participant observation
is time samplin or event sampling
discuss any issues such as ethical issues like people might see it a breech of privacy or something.

Reply 33

eselle

Original post by Asyfa

Go by this type of structure :
Description (5 marks)
- Sample (age? gender? size?)
- Where and when (location? time? day?)
- Behaviour from the coding sheet that you will observe (give example!)
- Any pilot study?
- Covert or Overt? Will it be recored on video?
- How long will the observation take place?
- Time or event sampling

Continuously refer back to the original question and be specific on everything, give plenty of examples.

Evaluation (5 marks)
Factors that will increase validity
- Pilot study - define characteristics of the behaviours to be put onto the coding sheet
- Covert - less chance of demand characteristics
- Natural environment - high ecological validity
Factors that will decrease validity
- Event sampling - behaviours put into pre-determined categories meaning the behaviour may not fit into a specific category
Factors that will increase reliability
- Coding sheet
- More than one observer - inter-rater reliability
- Videotaping

Could also mention ethics, practicality or representative of sample

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 34

WizKidd

Has anyone got the january 2012 paper mark scheme? That was a tough papeer

Reply 35

Nas.

Does anyone have any notes for this exam?

Reply 36

stoppy123

Some Points that I think are musts in the exam

Advantages and disadvantages of the research methods.

Observation

•

High in ecological validity

•

No demand characteristics

•

Problems with ethics (consent)

•

Interpretation of behavior problems

Experiment

•

Specialised equipment can be used

•

High amounts of control, confounding variables can be limited, easy to replicate.

•

Low in ecological validity as artificial setting

•

High in demand characteristics.

Correlation

•

Shows the relationship between variables.

•

Can provide background for further study.

•

Correlation does not causation

Self report

•

Quick and easy to do.

•

Ask people directly and they know themselves well so accurate answer.

•

People may lie and give socially desirable responses.

•

Answers are not always representative of what people actually do.

Sample

Random sample

•

Avoids bias

•

Sample may not be representative (all random sample may be male)

•

People picked through random sample may not want to be included in study

•

Random sample is hard to set up.

Self-selecting (volunteer)

•

Participants want to do the experiment

•

May be bias (only rich people volunteer themselves etc)

•

May be affected by demand characteristics as they volunteered themselves and want to please the experimenter

Oppurtunistic

•

Quick and easy to organise

•

Very bias (only people there at the time)

•

Not very generalisable

Experimental designs

Repeated measures

•

Not effected by individual differences as same PP's do both conditions of exp.

•

PP's may get bored

•

PP's may get practice effects and get better.

Independent measures

•

Participants don't get practice effects

•

Participants don't get bored as haven't done condition before.

•

Effected greatly by individual differences.

Matched pairs design

•

Matching participants on characteristic, less individual differences

•

No practice effects

•

No boredom

Reply 37

pilotantsta

Original post by stoppy123

Some Points that I think are musts in the exam

Advantages and disadvantages of the research methods.

Observation

•

High in ecological validity

•

No demand characteristics

•

Problems with ethics (consent)

•

Interpretation of behavior problems

Experiment

•

Specialised equipment can be used

•

High amounts of control, confounding variables can be limited, easy to replicate.

•

Low in ecological validity as artificial setting

•

High in demand characteristics.

Correlation

•

Shows the relationship between variables.

•

Can provide background for further study.

•

Correlation does not causation

Self report

•

Quick and easy to do.

•

Ask people directly and they know themselves well so accurate answer.

•

People may lie and give socially desirable responses.

•

Answers are not always representative of what people actually do.

Sample

Random sample

•

Avoids bias

•

Sample may not be representative (all random sample may be male)

•

People picked through random sample may not want to be included in study

•

Random sample is hard to set up.

Self-selecting (volunteer)

•

Participants want to do the experiment

•

May be bias (only rich people volunteer themselves etc)

•

May be affected by demand characteristics as they volunteered themselves and want to please the experimenter

Oppurtunistic

•

Quick and easy to organise

•

Very bias (only people there at the time)

•

Not very generalisable

Experimental designs

Repeated measures

•

Not effected by individual differences as same PP's do both conditions of exp.

•

PP's may get bored

•

PP's may get practice effects and get better.

Independent measures

•

Participants don't get practice effects

•

Participants don't get bored as haven't done condition before.

•

Effected greatly by individual differences.

Matched pairs design

•

Matching participants on characteristic, less individual differences

•

No practice effects

•

No boredom

WOW! Thanks a lot man :biggrin:

Reply 38

Belurved

Original post by WizKidd

Has anyone got the january 2012 paper mark scheme? That was a tough papeer

Hi i was sondering if you have the paper for Jan 12? The examiner's report is online but the exam isnt, my sixth form didnt do any Jan exams too! :frown:

If anyone needs revision sheets just pm me ur email and i will happily send you about 10 revision notes which i have compiled over the years using different textbooks, mark schemes and websites ! :smile:

A lot of you seem to dread the 10 markers and so do i, but the key is to practice and STICK TO THE STRUCTURE OF WHO? WHAT? WHEN? HOW? AND WHY? make sure it's in ur mind and even write it down on ur paper when u get there that definetely gets u the top band!

Basically just practice a lot and try and do all the papers online, since i've looked at the mark schemes and done past papers i've gone from an E to a B to an A and A! :boxing:

Reply 39

stoppy123

Original post by pilotantsta

WOW! Thanks a lot man :biggrin:

Also, some more stuff.

Types of question

Open question:

•

Participant can give own answer to the question, not forced choice.

•

Much more detailed

•

More likely qualatative data

•

Very difficult to analyse

•

People less likely to put accurate answer as it takes more effort

Closed question:

•

Quick and easy to analyse

•

People will always answer as it doesn't take long

•

Quantatitive data

•

Not very detailed

•

Forced choice

Rating scale question:

•

Also very quick and easy to analyse

•

Allows participants to personalise their answer slightly

•

Interpretation of scale, meaning one persons 8/10 may be anothers 6/10

•

Also forced choice

Time and Event sampling

Event sampling

•

Records every instance of the behaviour you are measuring

•

Doesn't take into account time, as a person on the phone for 2000 minutes would be counted as 1.

•

Very quick and easy to do.

Time sampling

•

Records how long the behaviour you are measuring occurs for.

•

Problem with how long you measure for, if you measure once every minute, and someone was on their phone for 59 seconds, it wouldn't be counted.

•

Quite difficult to do.

Statistics

Mean

•

Basically the average

•

Can be affected heavily by outliers

•

Isn't very good on small samples

•

Better on large samples

Median

•

The middle number of results

•

Isn't affected by anomalous high or low values

•

Better to do on large samples

•

May not give an accurate result if there is a large jump in the values

Range

•

Effected the most by anomalies

•

Provides the difference between high and low result.

Mode

•

Most often number

•

Better to do on larger range of values as the mode would more likely represent the result

•

Can be very effected by anomalous results

Some definitions

Dependent variable: What is being measured
Independent variable: What is being manipulated
Hypothesis: States what the experimenter thinks the outcome of the experiment will be.
Valid: 'are you testing what you think your testing'
Reliable: Re-test and get same results.