Gerard Keegan's Psychology Site: Research Methods and the Correlation

Return to:

Research Methods and the Correlation

Method

Design

Say you used a repeated measures experimental design. Identify the two conditions of the IV, which is participants in Condition A first estimating their mother's and then their fathers IQ. Condition B is participants first estimating their fathers IQ and then their mothers. Identify the dependent variable or DV, which is IQ estimate.

Say what a RMD is. Give its advantages and disadvantages. (Control of participant variables. Why? Order effect. Why? Say how you overcame order effect using counterbalancing using the ABBA procedure. Being 50% of participants underwent Condition A then B, while the other 50% underwent Condition B then A.

Participants

Here you say how your sample was selected (opportunity sample), why you used this method (availability!), how many, their make-up (i.e. males and females, ages, no prior knowledge of psychology etc.)

Apparatus

1 Consent form

2 Standardised Intelligence Estimate Forms A and B

3 Debriefing statement

4 Raw data table

Indicate in your report at what page, and in what Appendix the Consent form (Appendix i), the Standardised Intelligence Estimate Forms (Appendix ii), the Debriefing statement (Appendix iii) and the Raw data Table (Appendix iv) can be found.

Note above that I have used lower case roman numerals to indicate each appendix. Please do the same in your research report for your Appendices.

Procedure

This is by far the most vital part of any psychology research report. Anyone using the design, sampling technique, and apparatus indicated above should by following your Procedure be able to replicate your experiment and come up with the same results.

[If using your own questions to get estimates of IQ, I would suggest you do a pilot study of them first. If they are direct lifts from Hogan say so, and that accordingly they were standardised by him. But to be on the safe side it might be an idea to do another pilot of them. Get 10 people from the cohort your opportunity sample is from (e.g. S5 and S6) and get them to first complete them. Ask each at the end if they had any problems with it. If they manage fine, then they are OK to use in this form. You have standardised them. If you do a pilot tell the reader in your procedure section that you did. Show off!]

Essentially a procedure section tells a reader what happened with each participant from the minute they entered your laboratory until the minute they left. For example

An opportunity sample of XX participants was assembled at Queen Margaret Academy. They were all told the general purpose of the experiment, which was to estimate the IQ of another person. All were asked to complete a consent form (see Appendix i) and at that stage given the opportunity to withdraw. Half of the sample was then taken into another room to undergo condition A of the independent variable. This was to estimate first their mother's intelligence quotient, and then their fathers. The half that remained underwent condition B, which was to estimate first their father's intelligence, and then their mothers. The dependent variable was measured in the response each participant estimated his or her parents' intelligence to be.

Then say you thanked your participants, that they were debriefed (given the true purpose and nature of the study), and that they got a chance to themselves read your report at a later date.

NB mention your pilot if you do one. This allows you to truly say the IQ estimate questions are standardised.

Click here to continue to Results
Or Here to go back to the Introduction

Switch to:

Dyslexia & Myers-Irlen syndrome

Research into dyslexia and Myers-Irlen syndrome suggests that changing the background colour upon which words are written can often benefit the reader. If you feel this applies to you please select your preferred colour from the DMI EasiReader © below.

Click here to go to the DMI EasiReader information page

[ Sign my Guestbook] - [Read my Guestbook ]