Specification PS,-. Point: The major features of science.

Research #ethods 'heat Sheet Notes:

Objectivity objective knowledge should be free of opinion or bias and based purely on empirical evidence. Replicability the ability to check and verify the information by repeating a study. Falsifiability the ability to demonstrate that a theory is wrong.

Validatin ne! "no!led e and the role of peer revie!.

New knowledge is published in scientific journals which act as permanent records of research. It is checked by professionals in the specific field of research who peer review it. Only high quality work is published. There are a few issues with the peer review system including o The rejection of ne! research which does not reflect the current paradigm. o The file dra!er phenomenon research which does not support the hypothesis ends up in a drawer rather than published. o Revie!er bias may stop a piece from being published if the e!pert doesn"t agree or if the research doesn"t come from a specific institution# it may not be published.

Research #ethods $selectin and applyin appropriate methods%.

&ntervie!s and Surveys choose when you need to get detailed information or want to know in$depth responses. Observations choose when you want to gather data without largely influencing the participant"s behaviour or when you are interested in how behaviour may appear in a natural environment. 'ase Study In depth study of a single person or small group of people. 'orrelational Study when looking for a relationship between two variables e.g. amount of time spent watching T% and aggression. (ab )*periment when looking for cause and effect between two specific variables. Random + a sample in which every member of the target population has an equal chance of being chosen. &very member of the target population is identified and a random sampling technique is employed to select the sample. Opportunity + a sample that consists of those people available to the researcher. The researcher approaches people and asks them to take part. This reduces the population validity and leads to a high chance of bias within the sample.

Samplin Strate ies and &mplications of.

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/hat to include if as"ed to !rite up a methods section:

$ 6ypothesis o Not strictly necessary but a nice addition if you want an '( o )tating a directional or non$directional hypothesis would be fine but you may also wish to include a null hypothesis to really show off 7esi o o o o o n *ab+,ield+Natural &!periment Independent -roups+.epeated /easures+/atched 0airs I% and 1% 2ontrol of any e!traneous variables 1ealing with any ethical issues

Participants o )ample si3e o )ampling method o 2ontrol -roups #aterials o This will vary hugely but may include items such as a questionnaire# paper# pens# stopwatch# consent form# standardi3ed instructions etc. Procedure 4step by step guide to allow for replication5 o 1uration+6hereabouts+1etails of who how many people were recording data+7ow the data was recorded.

/hat to include if as"ed to !rite up a results section: ' clearly labelled table of the results. ' well labelled bar graph+histogram+scatter gram of the data. &!planation of which statistical test was used and why.

&!planation and justification of which level of significance the results were compared to. 6hether the hypothesis+es can be accepted or rejected based on the results of the statistical test.

(dont worry, you dont need to remember this listtheyll tell you it all in the exam!)

-reas & most need to !or" on: confident in:

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