Evaluation Issues

These are some of the evaluation issues you should know for Psychology.

A

Androcentric Bias -
Where the researchers study a male only sample, and then generalise it to females.

Applications to Everyday Life -
Do the results apply to everyday life? (links to Usefulness)

C

Control of Variables -
How controlled is the study? Are there any outside factors influencing the results?

D

Demand Characteristics -
Participents pick up on situational/experimental factors and change their behaviour/answers to fit what they think the experimenter wants to see/hear

Deception -
Decieving the participents/subjects

E

Ethics -
A set of rules designed to distinguish between right and wrong

Ethnocentrism -
Being unable to conceptualise or imagine ideas, social beliefs, or the world from any viewpoint other than that of one's own particular culture or social group.
The belief that one's own ethnic group, nation, religion, scout troop, or football team is superior to all others.

Ecological Validity -
A way of assessing how valid a measure or test is, which is concerned with whether the measure or test is really like its counterpart in the real, everyday world.

F

Field Experiment -
A study that follows the logic of the experimental process, but is conducted in the outside world rather than the laboratory.

G

Gynocentric Bias -
Researchers use an all female sample and then generalise it to males.

Generalisabilty -
Can research be applied to the general population?

H

Holistic -
Treating its subject matter as a coherent and indivisable unit.

I

Inter-observer Reliability -
A phrase which describes the extent to which 2 independant observers agree on the observations that they have made.

Individual Differences -
The study and measurement of the significant ways indviduals differ from each other

L

Lab Experiment -
An experiment carried out in an artifical, lab environment.

Longitudinal Study -
A study which monitors changes occuring over a period of time

N

Nomothetic -
Concerned with the formation of general laws, normally of behaviour.

Nature/Nurture -
Nature - The inheritance of abilities or chracteristics
Nurture - Learning or the effect of environmental factors

Nature of Participents -
Describes who was used, the response rates etc

Q

Qualitative Data -
Data which describes meaning and experience rather than providing numerical values for behaviour such as frequency counts (Remember Quality).

Quantitative Data -
Data which focusses on numbers and frequencies rather than on meanings or experience (Remember Quantity).

R

Reinforcement -
Any consequence of any behaviour which increases the probablity of that behaviour re-occurring in simialr circumstances.

Reliability -
If the study was replicated, how likely is it that it would produce the same results?

Reductionism -
Reudes complex behaviour into something much, much simpler.

Response Bias -
The tendency that subjects have to produce experimental responses which are socially desirable, or that they think the experimenter expects.

S

Situational Attribution -
A reason for an act or behaviour which imples it occurred as a result of the situation or circumstances that the person was in at the time.

V

Validity -
How far a given measure assess what it is intended to measure.

Surface Validity -
How far the measure seems appropriate.

Criterion Validity -
The measure being used is compared with another measure or standard that assess the same thing.

Construct Validity -
How far the measure being examined truely presents the theoretical construct which it is supposed to measure.