Designing Research Methods (AQA GCSE Psychology): Exam Questions

A researcher wants to investigate the most common behaviours displayed by children during the sensorimotor stage of development.

The researcher and an assistant decide to carry out a controlled observation study.

One behaviour being observed is ‘shaking a rattle’.

Describe how you would carry out this controlled observation study.

You need to:

• identify a suitable age range of the target population

• suggest two suitable behaviour categories that could be used during the observation. Do not include ‘shaking a rattle’ as one of your categories

• briefly describe two ways the researcher could make sure there is interobserver reliability

• identify one way the researcher could make sure her study is carried out in an ethical manner.

At the end of the 14-day study, the researcher interviewed 10 participants about their experiences of using the DinoCatch app. She wanted to find out if there was a correlation between time spent outdoors and improvement of mood.

She asked the participants how many hours they had spent outdoors playing DinoCatch during the 7-day period after the app was released. She also asked participants to rate how much their mood had improved on a scale of 0–10.

A rating of 0 meant that their mood had not improved at all.

A rating of 10 meant that their mood had improved a lot.

The results are shown in Table 3.

Table 3 Number of hours playing DinoCatch and mood improvement rating

Sketch a scatter diagram to display the results shown in Table 3.

You must include:

• a suitable title for your scattergram

• a label for the x-axis.

Estimate the mood improvement rating for someone who played the app for 20 hours.

Use the results from the study to help you.

The researcher concluded that playing DinoCatch caused participants’ mood to improve.

Suggest why the researcher is not correct to draw this conclusion.

Outline and evaluate the use of interviews in psychological research.

Read the following article.

The experimental design used in all of the versions of the described obedience research was independent groups.

Using your knowledge of how to plan and conduct psychological research, discuss the reliability and validity of using independent groups.

Research has been carried out with different cultures to see whether or not non-verbal behaviour is innate.

The results show that the facial expressions of anger and happiness are commonly recognised by most cultural groups around the world.

Outline how you would design a study to investigate whether or not the facial expression of surprise is also commonly recognised.

In your answer:

• identify who your participants would be and explain why you would choose these participants

• describe what you would ask your participants to do and what data you would collect

• identify whether the data you collect would be qualitative or quantitative and explain your answer.

Read the following information.

You have been asked to investigate possible gender differences in the fight or flight response to a highly stressful social situation.

Describe how you would design a study to do this.

You need to include the following information in your answer:

• what you would ask your participants to do

• what data you would collect and a justification for why this should be collected

A researcher wanted to investigate the effect of context on the accuracy of memory.

Describe how she could design a laboratory experiment to do this.

You need to include the following information in your answer:

• a task that she could ask participants to carry out and a description of the data she would collect

• what the conditions of the independent variable would be

• one extraneous variable that could affect the results and how the researcher could control this variable.

The researcher considered different experimental designs when planning her experiment.

Identify and explain one strength and one weakness of an independent groups design.

Read the following information.

Identify the type of experiment used in this study.

Identify the experimental design used in this study

Read the following information.

Sketch a frequency table the researcher and their assistant can use to collect information about the types of learning activity participants do during study lessons.

Include two categories of behaviour about types of learning activity in your frequency table.

Do not include ‘chatting to friends’ and ‘completing work’ as categories of behaviour.

The psychologist and their assistant had high interobserver reliability in their observation study.

Define what is meant by ‘interobserver reliability’ in observational research.

Read the following information

Outline one strength and one weakness of using correlations in psychological research.

Participants were asked to rate their confidence levels on a scale.

The scale went from 1 (low) to 5 (high).

Participants used a similar scale to rate how likely they are to say something when they see someone dropping litter.

The results are shown in Table 1.

Table 1 Ratings for participants’ confidence and the likelihood of saying something when witnessing littering.

Use the results in Table 1 to sketch a suitable graph to show the ratings for participants’ confidence and the likelihood of them saying something when witnessing littering.

Also include in your answer:

• a label for the Y axis

• a scale for both axes

• a suitable title for your graph

The researchers who carried out the described questionnaire would like you to do a follow-up study.

The participants who took part in the questionnaire have also agreed to be participants for your study.

You are also able to use the ratings they gave themselves for the different personality traits.

Describe how you would design a field experiment to find out more about how personality affects whether people would say something when witnessing anti-social behaviour.

In your answer include:

• a description of the procedure you would use

• what your dependent variable would be

The ‘One day at a time’ research study asked people with a diagnosed mental health problem to regularly answer the question ‘What did you find difficult to deal with today?’

On 6 days, spread throughout the year, people were asked to write about their day.

An analysis of the answers was carried out and the difficulties most commonly mentioned by the participants were identified.

Many participants mentioned more than one of these common difficulties.

The results are shown in Table 2.

Table 2 Difficulties most commonly mentioned by females and males.

Outline one strength of using questionnaires to carry out psychological research.

Imagine you have been asked to carry out a follow up study to the ‘One day at a time’ research.

One of the individual effects of having a mental health problem is the negative impact on physical wellbeing.

The researchers have asked you to find out more about how the negative impact on physical wellbeing affects people with a mental health problem.

You have decided to carry out your study by doing a questionnaire. You plan to use opportunity sampling to select your participants.

In your answer:

• explain how you will select your opportunity sample

• write one question that will help you to collect relevant quantitative data

• write one question that will help you to collect relevant qualitative data.

You have been asked to conduct an experiment to investigate the effects of serial position when learning a list of words. Describe how you would conduct this experiment.

You need to include:

• the experimental design you would choose, and why this would be suitable

• the task participants would be required to do and the data that you would collect

• the results you would expect to find from your experiment.

Read the item and then answer the questions that follow.

A teacher asked her students to record how long they spent on social media and how long they spent reading for pleasure over a 14 day period. This is what she found.

Table 3: Table to show the time spent on social media and the time spent reading for pleasure

Identify the type of correlation the teacher found.

Which of the following is a strength of using an independent groups design in psychological research?

Explain what is meant by counterbalancing and why it is used in repeated measures designs.

Professor Sharma is conducting an experiment to test whether eating chocolate before a psychology test affects the results students achieve.

Half of the 40 students were randomly allocated to condition A: eating 50 g of milk chocolate 30 minutes before the test. The other half were allocated to condition B: eating no chocolate before the test.

The test score (out of 100) was recorded for all students.

Professor Sharma randomly allocated the participants to Condition A and Condition B.

Briefly explain one reason why random allocation was used in this experiment.

Outline and evaluate the use of questionnaires in psychological research.

Read the following information.

A neuropsychologist carried out an observational study to investigate language function in patients who had suffered neurological damage to Wernicke's area.

10 patients with Wernicke's aphasia (difficulty understanding speech) had their brain scans rated for extent of damage to Wernicke's area (1 = minimal damage; 10 = extensive damage), and were also assessed for speech comprehension difficulty using a rating scale (1 = low difficulty; 10 = high difficulty).

Name the type of correlation this finding represents.

When the neuropsychologist saw the results, she claimed to have found that damage to Wernicke’s area causes speech comprehension difficulties.

Explain why the results do not show that neurological damage causes language difficulties.

Briefly outline what is meant by ‘laboratory experiments’ and by ‘field experiments’.

Use your knowledge of one published experiment to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of either laboratory experiments or field experiments.

Research findings show that different types of praise can affect learning. You have been asked to carry out an experiment to test these findings.

You will use two groups of 17-year-olds who have booked 20 lessons at a local driving school.

In Group 1 the driving instructor will praise students’ effort during lessons.

In Group 2 the driving instructor will praise students’ driving ability during lessons.

All students will complete a driving test after their 20th lesson.

Imagine you carry out the experiment using the method that has been described.

Identify the following information:

• the experimental design and the type of experiment you will be using

• one ethical issue you will need to consider and how you will deal with this

• the results you will expect to find from your experiment.

In psychological research, what is meant by a ‘case study’?

Read the following information.

Table 3 The mean daily use of social media and happiness score for each participant

Use Table 3 to calculate the fraction of participants who had a mean daily social media use of less than 40 minutes. Write this fraction in its simplest form.

Sketch a scatter diagram to display the results shown in Table 3.

Provide a suitable title and labels for your diagram.

Identify the type of correlation the psychologist has found between happiness and social media use.

Explain the strengths and weaknesses of using correlations in psychological research.

In your answer, refer to the study investigating whether happiness is linked to social media use.

Briefly explain two strengths of field experiments.

Refer to Piliavin’s subway study in your answer.

Imagine that you have been asked to conduct a study to investigate the use of postural echo in a conversation. Use your knowledge of psychology to describe how you would do this.

In your answer:

• give a description of the procedure you would use

• name the type of data you would collect.

Hebb’s theory of learning and neuronal growth suggests that repeating the same task allows us to develop stronger cell assemblies.

You have been asked to conduct an experiment to investigate Hebb’s theory. You need to do this without the use of brain-scanning techniques.

In your answer, outline the following information:

• a description of the task you will use

• an appropriate hypothesis for your experiment

• the sampling method you will use and a description of how you will carry this out.

Kaij used questionnaires in his twin study of alcohol abuse.

Explain one strength and one weakness of using questionnaires in psychological research.

You have been asked to investigate the effect of interference on the accuracy of memory.

Describe how you would design an experiment to do this.

You need to include:

• what participants would be asked to do

• a suitable hypothesis for your experiment

• the results that you expect to find.

Which one of the following is a feature of an interview?

Evaluate the use of correlations in psychological research.

Imagine that you have been asked to conduct a study to investigate the idea that non-verbal behaviour is learned. Use your knowledge of psychology to describe how you would do this.

In your answer include:

• who your target population would be

• a description of the procedure you would use and what data you would collect

• one ethical consideration you would need to consider and how you would deal with this.

You have been asked to compare the different scanning techniques used to identify brain functioning. To do this, you are going to interview people who use scanning techniques to carry out their jobs.

You need to:

• write one appropriate question that you could ask your participants

• explain whether the data you collect from the interview will be quantitative or qualitative and why this type of data would be suitable

• identify one ethical issue you would need to consider and how you would deal with this issue.

You have been asked to compare the effects of using different learning styles to revise the structure of the brain. Describe how you would design an experiment to do this.

You need to include:

• the tasks participants would be asked to do to revise the structure of the brain using a verbaliser and a visualiser learning style

• one example of a standardised procedure that you would use and a justification for why this should be used

• one ethical consideration you would need to address and how you would deal with this.

A researcher wanted to find out if there was any relationship between the number of people diagnosed with significant mental health conditions and the amount of money needed to pay for social care costs. He looked at the statistics published by the Office of National Statistics for the past 10 years. The scatter graph in Figure 1 shows the results of his research.

Figure 1: The annual number of people diagnosed with significant mental health conditions and the amount of money needed to pay for social care costs for each of the past 10 years.

Identify the type of correlation the researcher found.

State whether the data collected by the researcher was primary or secondary.

Explain your answer.

Outline two weaknesses of correlations.

Read the following information.

Identify the independent variable in this experiment.

Identify the dependent variable in this experiment.

Write a null hypothesis that the researcher can use in this experiment.

Table 2: Total number of days missed by 190 Year 9 students in the early and late start conditions.

Table 2 shows the total number of days missed by 190 Year 9 students in the early and late start conditions.

Calculate the mean number of days missed by students in the late start condition.

Show your workings.

The mean for the early start condition was 1.4

Use this mean and your calculated mean from question 35d to sketch a suitable graph to show the mean number of days missed by each student in the early and late start conditions.

Label the axes and provide a suitable title for your graph.

The researcher used a repeated measures experimental design. He also used counterbalancing.

Explain why researchers often use counterbalancing with a repeated measures experimental design.

This study is an example of a field experiment.

Evaluate the use of field experiments in psychological research.

The psychologist wanted to interview a sample of the students in his experiment to find out how they felt about starting school earlier and later in the day. He thought about using either opportunity or systematic sampling to get his sample of students.

Outline both opportunity and systematic sampling.

Compare the use of these sampling methods using your knowledge of their strengths and/or weaknesses.

You have been asked to research the effectiveness of self-management programmes as an intervention for addiction.

Explain how you would use interviews to do this research.

You need to include the following information in your answer:

• who your target population would be

• what your sampling method would be and how you would select your sample using this method

• an appropriate interview question you could use in your research.

Anonymity means that a person cannot be identified and the information they share cannot be connected to them. Self-management programmes for addiction usually allow the people who attend them to be anonymous.

People often do not want to take part in research if their identity is going to be revealed.

Identify an appropriate way of dealing with the ethical issue of anonymity in the research you described in 36a.

You have been asked to design an experiment to investigate the effect of anonymity on conformity.

In your answer outline the following information:

• what your independent and dependent variables would be

• one thing you would do to standardise your procedure and why this would benefit your research

• the results you would expect to find from your experiment.

When carrying out the experiment you have outlined in your answer to Question 37a, you should consider ethical issues.

Identify two ethical issues that you would need to consider.

Suggest one appropriate way of dealing with each of the issues you identify.

You have been asked to investigate the effect of context on the accuracy of memory.

Describe how you would design an experiment to do this.

You need to include the following information in your answer:

• what you would ask participants to do and what data you would collect

• one extraneous variable that could affect your results and how you could control it

• the results you would expect to find from your experiment.

Explain one strength of using laboratory experiments in research.

Which two of the following are commonly understood to be advantages of case studies?

Outline what is meant by independent groups and repeated measures.

Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of both of these types of experimental design.

You have been asked to investigate the effect of motivation on perception.

Explain how you would design an experiment to do this.

You need to include the following information in your answer:

• the experimental design you would choose and why this would be suitable

• what you would ask the participants to do and what data you would collect

• the results you would expect to find from your experiment.

A researcher is going to carry out a questionnaire to find out if university students are addicted to harmful substances. All the students have been given full details about the study and have consented to take part.

Use your knowledge of psychology to:

• write one appropriate question that the researcher could ask the university students

• identify one ethical issue, apart from informed consent, that the researcher needs to address in this study. Explain how he could deal with the issue you identify.