Deconstruct - Psychology Investigation

Variables

Ethics

Experimental Investigation Design

Independent

  • Music Genre (Rock music or Jazz/Calm music)

Dependent

  • Heart Rate (BPM)

Extraneous

Method

Heart Rate Monitors

Sample

Size:

  • 77 Stage 1 Psychology Students
  • Middle Income Suburb
  • Awareness/interest in Psychology

Representativeness

  • Not representative of greater population

Validity: Did this measure what it was supposed to?
Strengths: Accurate way of measuring HR instead of taking pulse

Reliability: consistency in measurement
Limitations: Heart rate monitors required wetting - this could dry without perspiration

Validity of music tracks - how can you be sure that an arousal track does what it is meant to do?

Strengths

  • The sample used is likely to have exposure to a wide range of music genres, given their age, which is representative of a large population of music taste.

Limitations

  • Results are only generalised to a student population
  • It is difficult to generalise the affect of music on arousal to the greater population
  • Awareness of investigation and studies - confirmation bias - students may give to responses they believe are required/desired for the experiment
  • Participant variables: gender, emotional state, music exposure/preference, ingestion of substances (caffeine)
  • Was it music alone, or were participants thinking about stressful things
  • Situational variables: time of day, the thought of heart rate monitors, volume differences
  • Repeated measures, all participants listened to 1 music type first

Controlled

Strengths

  • Listening to the music for an extended period of time (10 minutes), allows the participants' level of physiological arousal to be taken at multiple points and finding the most representative results.
  • Given that all participants listened to the same songs, the results are able to be correlated with the intensity of the song, and not the specific song they listened to (if the songs were all different, each could have the potential to create different results which would not allow for correlation among the genre but rather the song).

Weaknesses

  • Length of time listening to music: Participants listened to the music for 10 minutes, so may have become accustomed to it.
  • Order in which songs were listened to: Participants all listened to the music in the same order, possible impact on response and data.
  • Consistent songs: All participants listened to the exact same songs, so the data can only really be correlated to those two songs.

Advantages

Disadvantages

  • All results were compared to a baseline
  • Greater control over extraneous variables due to the manipulative nature of the investigation design.
  • Easy to replicate which enables the ability to test the reliability

Confidentiality

Informed Consent

Voluntary Participation

Right to Withdraw

Accurate Reporting

Debriefing

All participants received a document outlining all aspects of the practical. Either the participants or their legal guardians (if under 16) had to provide written consent in order to participate.

All participation was voluntary, and participants were not pressured to participate in any way.

All participants were randomly allocated a three-digit identification number that was used throughout the practical in order to keep their results private.

All participants were allowed to withdraw at any time, without any negative consequences.

All data was reported exactly as it was stated by the participants.

Given that all participants involved were also the researchers, they were already aware of everything that was going on, so debriefing was not necessary (deception was also not used).

  • Results may not be applicable to real life scenarios (e.g. listening to a song for 10 minutes straight, awareness of measuring heart rate, etc.)