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The research method

Lab experiments allow you to control extraneous variables- Participants had the same standardised instructions as they all had to wear headphones

Controlled conditions as there was a 2 minute break between studying and testing- Improves validity and reliability

Some variables couldn't be standardised eg: length of time to read the article

Quantitative and qualitative data

Quantitative data- Statistics are easy to compare and analyse

Easy to establish the cause and effect- Matching or mis-matching affects retrieval

No qualitative data- Not getting participants opinions on what it felt like to study in silence

Ethical considerations

Participants were aware that they were participating, they weren't deceived and they were debriefed

Participants gave informed consent- They were aware that the experiment would test their reading comprehension

They were given the right to withdraw from the study

Validity

Controlled conditions and realistic materials- Improves validity

The results show that silent study is best- May be difficult to implement these strategies

The materials used were meaningful but not relevant ie: they may not study psychoimmunology- Lacks ecological validity

The participants only completed 30 minutes of studying, therefore it might not be generalisable to longer periods of study

Boredom, day dreaming and levels of motivation normally effect the time spent studying, so it lacks ecological validity

Reliability

Standardised materials (headphones and tape), procedure and instructions (eg: to ignore the content of the tape)- Makes it easy to replicate

There was a pattern of results across both conditions

Time taken to read the article was recorded but not controlled- Reduces reliability

Sampling bias

All participants were psychology students that knew the researcher- Unrepresentative because they're used to taking in information and being tested on it

Good age spread and roughly equal numbers of males and females

Psychology students- Increased risk of demand characteristics

Practical applications

Study habits- Students should try studying in silence

Taking witnesses back to the scene of the crime may help improve the accuracy of their testimony

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As there was no Independant effect of noise on performance, the claim made by students that 'noise doesn't affect their capacity to study' is supported. However, as context-dependence affects in both SAQ and MCQ, students should study in quiet surroundings as exams are normally held in silence

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All participants spent about the same time reading the article. There were no significant patterns for the individual variables ie: whether material was learned or retrieved in each environment made no difference on the test results. However, there was an interaction between study and test conditions- performance was significantly better in matching conditions than non-matching conditions. This suggests that recall is better when studying ad testing are performed in similar environments in terms of noisiness of the surroundings

Examples:
SAQ- Silent matching:
6.7
SAQ- Mismatching:
4.6

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AS Psychology OCR Research Methods Paper Quick Glance Overview

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Grant et al 1998 OCR Psychology Core Study part 1 of 2 SEE NOTES BELOW for amendment!

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Please note the diagram of groups states 8 ppts per group, it is in fact 10. Apologies for the mistake. Jonny

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Matching condition
Study context: Silent
Test context: Silent

Study context: Noisy
Test context: Noisy

Mis-matching condition
Study context: Noisy
Test context: Silent

Study context: Silent
Test context: Noisy

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Participants: 39 participants aged 17-51, 17 females and 23 males, recruited by opportunity sampling- psychology students. 8 psychology students acted as experimenters and recruited 5 participants each (the result from one participant was excluded)

Independent variable - Whether the study and test conditions were matched or mismatched

Dependant variable - How accurately the participants recalled and retrieved the information

Materials:
2 page article on psychoimmunology, noisy tape of a cafeteria at lunch time, headphones, 2 tests- Recall and retrieval

Procedure
30 minutes, Standardised instructions- All participants had to wear headphones. Participants asked to read the article which was interesting and understandable. Reading time was recorded but not controlled. During reading, all participants wore headphones. They then had a 2 minute break. They were asked to complete 2 tests. The short answer questions (for recall) were given to participants first to ensure that material was being recalled from the article itself rather than from the multiple choice questions (for retrieval)

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To test the effect of noise as a source of context on the studying and retrieval of meaningful material in an academic context

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Many studies have shown that recall is better when the participant is in the same environment during recall as they were when the learning occurred

This effect was originally explained by the encoding specificity principle (Tulving) as the consequence of 'context-dependency effects'

This suggests that some aspects of the environment during learning are encoded

Grant et al- Suggested that perhaps an important difference between study environments and test environments was the amount of background noise