Experimental method ContentLearningQ analysisPlanningWriting Experiments IV, DV Extraneous and confounding variables Controls Hypotheses Descriptive statistics Making your own examples to test understandin g Distinguishing between factual recall and analysis/ Application questions. Using mark allocations to plan answers. Making sure you write enough for the marks.

What can you think of, besides the teacher doing the marking, that might influence the mark a student ends up with?

Why did Miss Insch get Mr Dhillow to randomly allocate the papers to the two teachers?

If this had been an experiment, what would be the... – IV? – DV? – Controls? How do you know which is which?

If this had been an experiment, what would be the experimental design? How do you know?

How could Miss Insch have done the same investigation but using... – Matched pairs? – Repeated measures? Why might both of these designs be better than the independent measures design she used?

What might Mr Dhillow have checked before deciding to use the mean as his measure of central tendency? Based on his statistical summary, should Miss Insch believe the things she overheard the students saying? Why (not)?

Spot the confound... Professor Fakedata wanted to know whether people were more helpful in large or small settlements. He measured helpfulness by dropping a pile of papers and seeing whether anyone would help him pick them up. He started in the village of Smallton and gathered data for three hours. Then he drove to the nearby town of Busywick and collected data for a further three hours.

Spot the confound... Dr Fraud wanted to know if caffeine helps people revise more effectively. Twenty students were randomly allocated to two groups. Each was given the same, unfamiliar material to learn, and tested after one hour’s learning time during which they were kept isolated. Before starting, PPs in one group were given two ‘ProPlus’ caffeine pills to swallow.

Design an experiment to investigate the effect of a variable of your choice on whether people obey an authority figure. – Specify the IV, DV, design and procedure. – Hide a confounding variable in your description of the experiment.

RMS questions There are different types of RMS question... – Factual recall questions test your knowledge. – Application questions test your ability to carry out a skill. – Analysis questions test your ability to use what you know to make sense of something else. Colour code the questions in the exam paper according to which they are.