SAMPLE DESIGN A STUDY QUESTIONS
Planning:
WHO- The participants of the study. At times this may be mentioned to you in the
question, at times it may not. If not, you can come up with an appropriate sample
for your study. If it is mentioned, you cannot change the features/info about the
participants that has been mentioned. Features that you should include in your
sample are: number of participants, number of males/females (if important), age
range (or mean/average age), where they’re from, any other
appropriate/important features.
The experimenters can also play a role in the study. This can be in the
capacity of a stooge/confederate, or observer(s). Only include a stooge in your
study if absolutely necessary. Mention the role of the stooge as well as features if
important (age/clothing/gender etc.) If you have observers in your study, mention
the type of observation (covert/overt, participant/non participant)
WHAT- This varies depending on the type of study you have to conduct.
Experiments: IV, DV, experimental design, controls, data
(quantitative/qualitative), ethical considerations
Observations: No IV, DV (unless you are using an observation within an
experiment, then the IV,DV becomes an aspect of the experiment).
No experimental design.
Controls, data, ethical considerations.
Type of observation (overt/covert, participant/non participant,
structured/unstructured, naturalistic/controlled). The type of observation(s) you
choose for your study should depend on the situation mentioned in the question.
At times the question may specify what type of observation you need to conduct
(for example a participant observation)
Here are some points you should keep in mind if the study specifies a particular
type of observation you need to conduct:
Covert: Make sure the participants are unaware the observer is observing
them. This can be done by having the observer behind a one way mirror or
perhaps watching from a video camera. They can even be part of the group and
acting as a stooge and covertly observing the participants
Overt: The participants are aware they are being observed. The observer
can be away from the group or even close to the group. The observer should not
be a stooge because that would make it covert
Participant: Ensure that the observer is part of the group they are
observing. This can be either covert or overt depending on the situation. For
instance, an observer dresses up as a student and becomes part of the classroom
to covertly observe the other student. This will make it a cover participant
observation.
Non Participant: The observer should be away from the group they are
observing. This can be done through a video camera, behind a one way mirror, or
just generally observing from a distance. This can be overt or covert as well
Structured: You must use a behavioral checklist in this type of observation.
Mention the exact behaviors you will include in your checklist that you wish to
observe. Include time/event sampling as a way of recording the behaviors on the
checklist
Unstructured: No behavioral checklist. This can simply be any observation
other than structured (as long as it is appropriate to the situation)
Controlled: Add many controls in the environment where you will be
observing the participants
Naturalistic: Keep the environment natural and with limited or no controls
while observing the participants (for example, children playing in their school
playground)
Self Report: No IV, DV. No Experimental Design (unless you are using a self report
within an experiment, but similar to observations, if the question specifically
mentions to conduct only a self report study, then you would not include these)
No observation
Ethical considerations
Data
Types of self report:
Questionnaire: Include open/closed (or both, unless specified in the
question) questions. Talk about where the study is going to be conducted and
how participants will be recruited. Add any filler questions if there is a need to
deceive participants about the real aim. You can include likert scales (statements)
or rating scales (numerical) in closed questions. Give lots of examples of questions
that you will include in your questionnaire. Talk about the data they will provide
(quantitative or qualitative). Mention the duration of the study (30 minutes for
example)
Structured Interview: Have a preset list of questions which will be asked to
all participants and in the same order. Mention the data it will provide. Mention
any ethical considerations like consent or debriefing. If participants need to be
deceived, you can add filler questions. Mentioned where the interview is being
conducted and for how long. Fill your answer with many examples of questions
that you will asked but make sure the questions are the same for all participants
Unstructured Interview: Same as above except for one main factor – the
questions are not fixed. Give examples of questions that you will make up
depending on the answers of the participants. In an unstructured interview, the
questions asked are based on the answers to the previous question. Therefore,
every participant will be asked different questions
Semi-Structured Interview: Include both fixed and spontaneous questions.
Give examples of the fixed questions that will be asked to every participant and
examples of questions that could be asked on the spot
Interview-based study: If the questions generally states to conduct an
interview based study but doesn’t specify exactly which type of interview, you are
free to choose any of the above three (whichever is most appropriate to the
situation in your opinion)
Case Study: No IV, DV, no experimental design (unless it is an experimental case
study like pepperberg)
You can include self report or observation (or both) to collect data.
Ethical considerations such as consent, confidentiality, privacy, protection from
harm etc.
Type of data collected
The sample will be provided to you. In most cases it may be one single human or
animal, but it can also be a group such as a family. A case study is longitudinal
which means it will be conducted over a long period of time.
Make sure to mention how long the case study will be.
Correlation: No IV, DV, no experimental design
Controls, data, ethical considerations
You can use self report or observation to collect data
Mention the location of time frame of the study
Mention the type of correlation that you might be looking for (negative or
positive)
Talk about how the data can be presented (through a scattergraph)
WHERE- The location of the study. This may be provided to you in the question. It
may be hinted in the question as well. For example the question might state a
study is being done on students. Therefore, you must assume the location is a
classroom or school. If it a field experiment, make sure the study is conducted in a
natural environment. If it is a lab experiment, it should be conducted in a lab with
high controls. If it is a self report or observation, the location depends on the
situation. Same with correlation and case study (in most cases, a case study will
be a therapy session, and hence the location might be a clinic or rehabilitation
centre)
WHEN- The time frame of the study. Is it a snapshot study (a few minutes, one
day, or a few days), or a longitudinal study (6 months or more). A case study
would be expected to be a longitudinal study. A correlational study could also be
longitudinal. Experiments, observations or self report may be short term. In an
experiment, one trial could last for a day, a few hours, or even 30 minutes or so
depending on the situation.
HOW- This is the procedure. You must be creative. Come up with a task
appropriate to the question for the participants to go through keeping in mind the
following factors:
Experiments: How will you operationalize the IV and DV. How will you
collect data (self report, observation etc). How will you obtain the participants
(sampling technique). How will you maintain ethics (or break them). How will the
data be presented (bar graph, histogram etc)
Observation: How will you observe the participants (type of observation),
how you will collect data (observation sampling). How will you obtain participants
(sampling technique)
Self Report: How will you obtain participants (sampling technique), how will
you collect data (type of self report – questionnaire or interview – which type in
particular). How will you record the data? How will you present the data (bar
graph or histogram or scattergraph etc).
Case study: How will you obtain participants (sampling technique), how will
you collect data (self report or observation). How will you present the data. How
will you maintain ethical considerations.
Correlation: How will you obtain participants (sampling technique). How
will you collect data (self report, observation). How will you maintain ethical
considerations. How will you present the data (scattergraph). How will you
operationalize the two variables to determine the type of correlation (self report,
or observation)
Part (b) - Identify one practical weakness/limitation with the procedure you have
described in your answer to part (a) and suggest how your study might be done
differently to overcome the problem.
Do not refer to ethics or sampling in your answer
For this part of the question, it is recommended that you use either a
weakness linked to reliability or validity (not ecological validity). Do not refer to
generalizability or ethics as your weakness. You cannot change the research
method technique that you are required to conduct
Reliability – you can talk about ways in which your procedure may not have been
standardized, for example, number of trials per day are not fixed and this could be
overcome by having the same number of trials per day in the procedure. You can
talk about inter observer or inter rater reliability as well. If you have one observer
in your study (assuming you are conducting an observation), you can state that
this is a weakness as your study will not have inter observer or inter rater
reliability, and this could be overcome by having two observers
Validity – you can talk about any possible confounding variable you have
identified in your study which you did not control and can talk about how it can
be controlled. You can talk about how some participants may show demand
characteristics, or socially desirable responses (for self report studies), and this
can be overcome by hiding the true aim from the participants. Another way
validity could be an issue is if you used an independent measures design in your
experiment and there might be individual differences, you can overcome this by
having a matched pairs design, or maybe going for a repeated measures (if this is
a suitable option for the situation). Finally, perhaps the way in which you
operationalized the variables in your study had some flaw and could have been
operationalized in a better way.
SAMPLE ANSWER
1 Jilpa plans to explore how personalities vary. She thinks that people’s
personalities can have several characteristics, for example, how
serious/playful, talkative/quiet or optimistic/pessimistic they are.
(a) Describe how Jilpa could conduct a study using a structured interview
to investigate a range of characteristics in people’s personalities
Jilpa can conduct her study on a group of 15 participants, 7 male and 8 female,
between the ages 20 to 50. She will place an ad in the newspaper to recruit
participants, and will provide them a stipend for their participation. This will make
the sampling technique volunteer sampling with participants providing consent
for them to be interviewed. The interview will be conducted on each participant
individually in a room at Jilpa’s office/clinic. Jilpa will have a preset list of
questions that she would ask each participant in the interview, and in the exact
same order as well. The questions would be about their personalities. The list of
questions she would as are as follows – “How often do you socialize with your
friends or colleagues?”, “are you usually the one leading the conversation, or do
you often find yourself listening to others?”, “when you are with your friends in a
social setting, how playful or serious are you around them?”, “how strongly do
you believe you would be satisfied with your life 5 years from now?”, “how
optimistic would you say you are in general from a scale of 1 (not at all) to 5 (very
much)?”, “how often would you say you get angry, annoyed or frustrated?”, and
finally “would you consider yourself an introvert or an extrovert?” Each interview
would last approximately 15 minutes for each participant. The participants would
be ensured that their confidentiality would be maintained. The data would be
both qualitative and quantitative that would be collected, due to the subjective
responses of the participants as well as their ratings on some of the questions
which Jilpa would use in order to analyze the several characteristics of the
personalities of her participants.
(b) Identify one practical weakness/limitation with the procedure you
have described in your answer to part (a) and suggest how your study
might be done differently to overcome the problem. Do not refer to ethics
or sampling in your answer
One weakness with the study is that participants may give socially desirable
responses which may lower the validity as the participants might change their
responses in the interview to make their personalities appear more social or
extroverted for example. This can be overcome by providing the participants with
a fake aim, with the use of filler or distractor questions during the interview, so
that the chances of participants providing socially desirable responses are
reduced.