AIM
A general statement of why the study is being carried out.
INDEPENDENT VARIABLE (IV)
A variable which is deliberately manipulated by the experimenter.
FIELD EXPERIMENTS
Experiments which take place in natural settings.
MUNDANE REALISM
An artificial situation that resembles a natural situation.
EVALUATION APPREHENSION
The participants change their behaviour because they know that they are being observed and they want to be viewed favourably by the experimenter.
DEMAND CHARACTERISTICS
Features of an experiment which lead participants to behave in a certain predictable way.
REPRESENTATIVE SAMPLE
A sample in which the characteristics of the participants reflect the population.
EXPERIMENTAL VALIDITY
Does the experiment measure what it set out to measure?
ECOLOGICAL VALIDITY
Can the results be generalised to other situations? Field experiments are often considered to have high ecological validity because they take place in the ‘real world’.
INTERNAL VALIDITY
The validity of an experiment within the situation in which it is carried out.
INDEPENDENT MEASURES DESIGN
The subject only undergoes one condition.
REPEATED MEASURES DESIGN
The subject undergoes more than one condition.
CORRELLATIONAL STUDIES
Establishes the (if any) relationship between two variables.
OPPORTUNITY SAMPLING
Whoever you can find.
STANDARD DEVIATION
The spread / dispersion of scores around the mean.
LABORATORY EXPERIMENT
A controlled environment where the experimenter can manipulate the variables to test the hyothesis.
MEAN
The average. *Can be skewed by extreme scores. One advantage of using the mean is that it is the only measure of central tendency that uses all the numerical values of each score in its calculations.
MODE
Most frequently occurring score.
CORRELATION COEFFICIENT
A correlation coefficient is a number that reflects the degree of correlation. It indicates the degree to which two sets of scores are related. The number will always be between -1 and +1.
