Describing and evaluating the nine research methods and studies to go with them Laboratory experiments

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1 D 4.4 Methodologies Describing and evaluating the nine research methods and studies to go with them Laboratory experiments A laboratory experiment takes place in an artificial and controlled setting, which is not natural to the participants of the study. There is an independent variable, which is purposefully manipulated by the researchers, and the dependent variable is measured, to see the effect of changing the IV on the DV. All other variables other than these are controlled to the best of the researchers ability, which are called extraneous variables, but sometimes other variables can affect the results these are confounding variables. With laboratory experiments, cause and effect conclusions can be drawn. careful controls mean they are replicable so can be tested for reliability if carried out again and findings are similar, then it is likely to be reliable good controls mean there should be few confounding variables, so experiment is objective (e.g. there should be no subjectivity from the experimenter s interventions and interpretations) and scientific by isolating variables, the situation is not as in real life so findings are not likely to be valid laboratory experiments usually lack validity of the task and therefore are not representative of true behaviour Loftus and Palmer (1974) Loftus and Palmer were interested in the effectiveness of eyewitness testimony. Their experiment looked at the effects of leading questions, by changing the wording of questions asked to different groups of participants, on memory (or in this case, judgement). Participants were each shown a video of a car crash, and then asked What speed do you think the cars were travelling when they with the final word varying between contacted, bumped, collided, hit and smashed for different groups. The average speed estimates for each group were measured, finding that contacted gave the lowest estimate and smashed the highest, with a 10mph difference. Field experiments A field experiment takes place in the natural environment of the participants. Again, the IV is manipulated and the DV is measured to see the effect of changing the IV on the DV. Variables other than the IV and the DV are controlled once more, although this becomes more difficult when in a natural setting, as the experimenters have less control over their variables. Cause and effect conclusions can also be drawn from these experiments, as far as is possible from within the natural setting, the researchers may claim the change in the independent variable caused the change in the dependent variable. careful controls mean that they are replicable and so can be tested for reliability, if similar findings are obtained good controls mean there should be few confounding variables, and so the experiment is objective and scientific will have ecological validity as the participant is in their natural setting normal behaviour will be observed although the setting may be valid, the task may not be to test a hypothesis, certain features have to be removed from the experiment to isolate the variables being studied and so again, real life may not be studied harder to control extraneous variables as this takes place out of the controlled and artificial setting lab experiments are Hofling et al. (1966) Hofling s study into doctor-nurse obedience relationships has had massive application, but also been very controversial in terms of ethics. The study involved asking nurses to obey instructions from an unknown doctor over the phone which go against their regular training and which are unauthorised. The aim was to see if the nurses would obey the instructions, even when this went again their own judgements. 21 of the 22 nurses obeyed those orders. Separately, a large number of nurses separate from the study completed a questionniare asking if in this situation they would obey, and the general response was no suggesting what people say they will do and what they actually will do are two very different things

2 Naturalistic experiments Naturalistic experiments involve a naturally-occurring independent variable, and a dependent variable which is measured to see the effect of the (natural) changes in the IV. Experimenters will try to control other variables to the best of their ability, but this is often very difficult in naturalistic experiments, where nothing is artificially manipulated. It is likely to take place in the participants natural setting as this is where the independent variable will have occurred. Cause and effect conclusions are drawn, as far as is possible in the natural setting the researcher may claim the change in the IV caused the change in the DV. there is validity of the task as it is naturally-occurring and also validity in the setting as it is the natural environment for the participants the findings are claimed to have scientific status as there is an attempt to isolate the IV and measure the DV so that cause and effect conclusions can be drawn the lack of control over the task and often the setting means that there may well be confounding variables, so the change in the IV may not have caused the change in the DV it may be difficult to isolate one variable as the naturally-occurring IV as usually behaviour and situations are complex Charlton et al. (2000) Charlton s study looked at children on the island of St Helena. Satellite television had never been previously introduced to the island, and so when it finally was in the year 2000, Charlton seized the opportunity to take advantage of this naturallyoccurring variable and test to see the effect of television on aggression and violence. He found that actually those children who watched television did not increase in their negative (antisocial) behaviours, and there were only small changes in the number of positive behaviours. The study did not seem to suggest that television media had an effect on aggressive behaviour. Observational research Observations take place most often within the participants natural setting as they tend to be naturalistic. The observation can be participant or non-participant (depending on whether or not the researcher is actively taking part in the situation, so researching from within the experiment, or just observing from afar), and covert or overt (depending on whether the participants are aware they are being studied or not). Quantitative data can be obtained if behaviours are firstly categorised allowing a tally to be kept (time tallying) to record the number of target instances of each behaviour which occur. Qualitative data can be gathered also, using video recordings or transcribing detailed notes of the observations: but these are not as comparable. Observations are sometimes structured in an artificial setting, so that they are more controlled and allowing comparisons between different observations to be made. naturalistic observations occur in a natural setting so have ecological validity in that the setting is usual for the participant and therefore normal behaviour is likely to be observed if behaviour is categorised and a tally is made by more than one observer then the findings can be compared to test for reliability if the observation is non-participant, then the presence of the strange observer might mean that there is not ecological validity, as the situation is not normal the stranger s presence may affect participants behaviour if it is a participant observation, then some information may be missed as it is difficult to both record data and take part in a situation, or there may be bias in the data selected for use Melhuish et al. (1990) Melhuish et al. conducted a study to see the effect of different types of daycare on the behaviours of children. Groups of children who were cared by either a nursery, childminder or relative were compared to a group of home children, who were cared for during the day by their stay-at-home mothers. Observations of the children s behaviours and attitudes showed that overall, those who were cared for by a nursery during the day showed worse use of language, less affection responses and more aggression than the other groups. The home group was also found to have the best communication and affection responses, and to be the most responsive of all the groups, closely followed by the relative group.

3 Questionnaires Questionnaires involve asking a set list of questions to a number of participants. This allows their responses to be compared. Questionnaires can contain both open-ended and closed questions, but the majority tend to be closed, which gather quantitative and easily compared data, because there are fixed options, and respondents cannot answer outside those limitations. But open questions may be used to allow the respondents to elaborate and comment on their answers, or to find out about their thoughts and opinions. Questions on personal data are used also, in order to truly test a hypothesis, as it is likely to require some understanding of a participant s background in terms of age, gender, socioeconomic status, etc. in a particular study, all of the questionnaires for each respondent are identical, helping replicability and allowing for easy data comparison between the participants both quantitative and qualitative data are collected from the use of a mixture of open and closed questions, meaning that statistical analysis can be used to analyse the quantifiable data, but also in-depth detail is obtained for analysis as a research method, these can be expensive and inconvenient due to the low response rate, reducing the amount of information gathered as most people choose not to complete the questionnaires closed questions, whilst providing data which is easily analysed, may present some problems with validity as they restrict respondents to answers which they do not really feel reflect the response they want to give Mumford and Whitehouse (1988) At this time, there had been very few non-whites reported with either anorexia or bulimia, and so the researchers wanted to see if the cases were actually less common in British Asian schoolgirls than their white counterparts. 204 Asians and 355 whites were used, schoolgirls aged 14 to 16, and were given a body shape questionnaire and an eating attitudes questionnaire. Those who scored abnormally in either were later interviewed about their attitudes towards eating and body shape. Asian girls scored higher (more abnormally) in both the eating attitudes test (mean score of 10.6 in Asians and 7.7 in whites) and the body shape questionnaire (73.3 for Asians, 70.3 for whites), and of those who met for the interview, more Asians were diagnosed with bulimia and anorexia than white girls, so it was concluded that the disorders were more prevalent in Asian girls than their white counterparts. Interviews Interviews may be structured (with a series of set questions used universally for all participants face-to-face), unstructured (where a schedule gives the general direction of the interview but the interviewer is free to ask different questions and explore areas in more detail) or semi-structured (where there is a set list of questions, but the interviewer can ask for more details where they feel appropriate). A schedule may be used, whereby participants are sent the list of questions, or a list of topics the interview will cover, beforehand in preparation for the interview. unstructured interviews are useful for gathering qualitative data to explore an issue in depth and provide information to develop a scientific experiment, and are likely to gather valid data as interviewees are not restricted in answers semi-structured interviews allow both quantitative and qualitative data to be gathered, as the structure can be easily repeated but researchers have the possibility of exploring issues in more detail where appropriate unstructured interviews are hard to compare with each other as they do not follow a replicable schedule, so reliability cannot be checked, and data is harder to analyse as it is unique due to the range of responses, also possibly subjective findings from structured interviews might also have limited validity as they limit the responses of interviewees Goldstein (1988) Aimed to see the differences between the male and female experience of schizophrenia, and to see if the DSM-III gave supporting diagnoses for patients who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia using DSM-II. In one part of the study, 199 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia using DSM-II were used, and it was found that 169 of them shared the same diagnosis using DSM-III, a good result suggesting the DSM to be reliable. They were diagnosed using interviews and observations. The second part involved looking at 90 patients who had been hospitalised to analyse the effect of social functioning and premorbid functioning factors on schizophrenia. Through interviews with specially-trained interviewers and a specialist list of questions to investigate hallucinations and delusions (and other symptoms), and analysis of the patients, Goldstein found that males did indeed have a more severe course of the disorder.

4 Content analysis The content of written or recorded information, usually from media sources such as magazines, newspapers or television, is analysed using this method. The aim is to look for themes and categories which are common to different pieces of content. What those categories are depend upon the purpose of the study, and are decided by the researcher. The target categories, themes or behaviours are then counted (tallied) over the articles, producing quantitative data. quantitative data is generated and so inferential statistical testing can be carried out (such as the Spearman s rank coefficient or chi-squared test) to test for the significance of any differences found reliability can be tested for, as other people can repeat the content analysis using the same themes and categories the choice of the categories and the definitions of what comes under each category is decided by the researchers, bringing possible subjectivity into the research (for example not everyone may agree whether something could be considered to fit within a category) limited to the study of existing articles and sources so is inflexible and specialist, its use is limited to certain occasions Cumberbatch and Gauntlett (2005) This was a content analysis commissioned by Ofcom. They wanted to see how often smoking, alcohol and drug abuse were featured in television programmes watched by 10 to 15 year olds, and how they were handled. TV programmes between August and October 2004 were sampled, with 256 programmes in all. Over 70% were soap operas, and all programmes were broadcast before the 9pm watershed. Visual presentations and references to smoking, alcohol and drugs were noted. It was found that alcohol featured the most, with about 12 incidences per hour. There was much less reference to drugs or smoking, but only 4% of programmes featured none of these three. It was noted that major characters could be seen drinking and smoking, and large story arcs centred on drug abuse. But it was praised that drugs especially were always seen in a negative light. Smoking and alcohol were seen in either a negative or neutral light, but nothing was given to show drugs in a positive aspect. Being a content analysis, these results are the conclusions. Correlations A correlational technique can be used if there is quantitative data involve two scores from each participant in a research method. For example, the relationship between two variables from the responses of questionnaires can be shown using a correlation. If there appears to be a pattern between the two variables for a group of participants, a correlational test can be carried out. A positive correlation means that as scores on one scale rise, so do scores on the other; whilst a negative correlation means the scores will move in opposite directions: as one gets higher, the other decreases. correlational analysis can show a relationship which might not be otherwise noticed and which can then be researched in a controlled condition to identify the cause-and-effect relationship the quantitative data are often replicable so the analysis can be tested for reliability the two variables have to be operationalised to produce quantitative data, and so the findings may not be valid, as they can be hard to measure from a reductionist point of view correlations can show a relationship, but they do not identify which variable causes the effect on the other, or if there is a third variable that is actually affecting them both (correlations only consider two variables) Madon et al. (2003) Madon aimed to see how self-fulfilling prophecy worked in a natural situation outside of the lab. She looked at teenagers and their mothers predictions about their children s alcohol use, with the aim to see how their predictions affected whether or not they would drink. Over 500 mother-child pairings were used, with both interviews and questionnaires used to generate correlational data. Questions were asked so that the two variables (mothers expectations and actual alcohol use) could be plotted against each other in a correlation, longitudinally. The study assumes that the mothers predictions can affect their children s drinking habits. The accuracy of the mothers expectations was judged by comparing them to the analysis of variables taken from the responses of the questionnaires (predicted variables which researchers use to judge how much they should drink, based on gender, age, etc). Correlations found that teenagers with high self-esteem were more susceptible to self-fulfilling effects, and that positive self-fulfilling effects were more prevalent among the sample than negative. In terms of the sample, Madon found that 52% of the relationships found were due to accurate mothers expectations, and 48% were due to self-fulfilling effects.

5 Case studies Case studies involve in-depth and detailed research, and so usually gather qualitative data. However, case studies tend to use many different research techniques, and some forms of testing may generate quantitative data also. A case study will follow an individual or a small group of people, longitudinally. These people are often studied because they are unique in some way which relates to an area of psychological and scientific interest. Case studies involve the use of different research methods, including interviews, questionnaires, observations, case histories, etc. Freud also used dream analysis and symbol analysis in his case studies. the in-depth information about one person or a small group of people can provide details that otherwise might not be found, which can lead to new areas of study data is likely to be very valid, as the information gathered can be checked by using different research methods and asking the individual(s) concerned to check what is recorded case studies are hard to replicate to check reliability a situation which is being studied in the case study will probably be of interest because it is a rare occurrence, and therefore is unlikely to occur frequently and if the situation ever arises again, the researcher and context are likely to be different data is not usually generalisable as the depth and detail is personal and may not apply to anyone else, so the findings of case studies cannot be used to help build scientific bodies of knowledge Curtiss (1977) The case study of Genie by Curtiss is a great example of a case study. The majority of information for the study was taken through observing Genie, who was seen at regular sessions. Genie s mother was also interviewed frequently, although the reliability of her information was debatable, because she seemed to be saying whatever she thought the researchers wanted to hear. Her behaviours were videotaped, and various doctors medical reports were also used for information. Psychological testing and language tests were also used. All of these research methods helped to build up an extensive library of information.