1. Recap year 1: Activities
Research methods
Recap year 1: Activities

2. Task: Hypothesis: one tailed or two tailed
Decide whether the following hypotheses are directional or non-directional
There is a difference in children’s reading ability depending on whether they have blue or brown eyes.
Dogs that are rewarded with chocolate sit when told to do so more often than dogs that are not rewarded with chocolate.
There is a difference in the psychology grades of students depending on whether they are male or female.
Teenagers who watch horror films have more friends than teenagers who watch romantic comedies.

3. Task: Quiz – True or False?
A sample is a part of the whole group of people being studied
TRUE
FALSE Q2
A random sample is one where anybody who is available at the time are asked at random to be in the study Q3
A volunteer sample will always be biased because volunteers are likely to be very interested in the topic being studied and/or have a specific personality type (the volunteering type) that make them atypical of people in general Q4
Opportunity samples are often used in psychological research because they are cost and time effective and because other sample types are difficult to obtain Q5
A strength of a random sample is that it is assumed that chance selection will cancel out biases and provide a sample representative of the target population Q6
“The target population” is the same as “people in general” Q7
Student samples are ideal for psychological research, especially when psychology students are used, as they take the study seriously and are convenient for researchers based in universities
Stretch! For any that you believe to be false – correct the statements so that they are actually true!

4. Task: Which of the following is an independent groups design, a repeated measures design or a matched pairs design
Depressed patients were assigned to receive either cognitive therapy or behaviour therapy for a 12- week period. A standardised test for depression was administered and participants were paired on the severity of their symptoms.
A researcher randomly assigned student volunteers to two conditions. Those in condition one attempted to recall a list of words that were organised into meaningful categories; those in condition two attempted to recall the same words, randomly grouped on the page.
To investigate whether students are more alert in the morning or afternoon, each student is given a hazard perception test before school and at the end of the day.