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Experimental method - Coggle Diagram
Experimental method
- after aim you must formulate a hypothesis
- hypothesis = statement made at start of study which clearly states relationship between variables as stated by the theory
- non-directional hypothesis = simply states there's a relationship between the conditions/groups of people but doesn't specify the direction of this difference
- directional hypothesis = research makes the direction of difference between the conditions/groups of people clearly and specific. contains words like 'more/less, higher/lower, faster/slower etc.'
- deciding which of hypothesis to use
- psychologist tend to use a directional hypothesis when the findings of previous research studies suggest a particular outcome.
- with no/little previous research or research with contradictory findings, they'll instead use a non-directional hypothesis
- in exp, researcher changes/manipulates the IV and records/measures the effect of this change on the DV
- any other variables which may affect the DV should remain constant in a properly run experiment
- this is so researcher can be confident that the cause of the effect of the DV was the IV and the IV alone
- to test levels of IV we need different experimental conditions
- there's two levels of the IV:
1) control conditions
2) experimental condition
- well-written hypothesis should make it easy to tell what the IV and DV are
- but, also for good hypothesis, it should be shown how each of the variables have been operationalised in order to make hypothesis clear and testable
- after coming up with idea for experiment (i.e. a theory), the next step is to narrow the focus of the research and produce an aim.
- Aims are developed from theories
- theories = more sophisticated & based on much more hours of research compared to aims
- aim = general statement which describes the purpose of an investigation.
- usually begin with 'to investigate whether'
- operationalisation of variables
- operationalisation = clearly defining variables in terms of how they can be measured