Paper 1: Research methods

A null hypothesis predicts that:

Which design uses different participants in each condition, matched on key variables?

Choosing every 10th name from a register is:

A variable that changes systematically with the IV and affects the DV is a:

Ranking cakes in order of preference produces:

The mean of 4, 6, 6, 8 and 11 is:

The median of 3, 9, 4, 7, 5 is:

Which test is used for nominal data in an independent design?

A Type I error is:

Telling participants the true aim after a study is called:

An observer who joins the group being studied without them knowing is conducting a:

A strength of closed questions is that they:

Giving the same test to the same people two weeks apart checks:

A correlation coefficient of +0.15 shows:

Which graph is suitable for showing the frequency of continuous data?

A psychologist wants to find out whether people are more helpful to someone wearing a uniform. Write a suitable aim for a field experiment.

Design a field experiment to test this. Include the IV and DV, the experimental design, sampling, procedure and how you would record data.

Discuss the ethical issues raised by your field experiment.

Evaluate the validity of your field experiment.

Explain how a self-report method could be used to investigate the same topic, and one strength and one weakness compared with the experiment.

In a memory experiment, Group A used a mnemonic and Group B did not. Scores (out of 20): Group A: 14, 17, 12, 18, 15, 16, 19, 13, 15, 16 Group B: 11, 9, 14, 10, 12, 13, 8, 12, 11, 10 Calculate the mean, median and range for each group.

What do the descriptive statistics suggest?

Explain why a Mann–Whitney U test is appropriate for these data.

The calculated U = 5. The critical value for n₁ = n₂ = 10 (one-tailed) is 27 at p ≤ 0.05 and 19 at p ≤ 0.01. Explain what this shows.

Sketch and describe a suitable graph to compare the two groups.

Identify two extraneous variables that could have affected the results and explain how each could be controlled.

Participants in Group A were also asked how they found the mnemonic. Discuss the advantages of collecting both quantitative and qualitative data.

Explain why replication is important in psychological research, using this experiment as an example.

Explain what a normal distribution is and why it matters when choosing a statistical test.