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Research methods
infoWhy this? This topic underpins all areas of psychology in the AQA specification. Students must understand how psychological knowledge is produced, evaluated, and challenged. Core concepts such as variables, experimental designs, data handling, ethics, reliability, and validity recur across every topic and are examined throughout both papers.
scheduleWhy now? This unit is taught at the start of the course because pupils are able to learn key terminology and apply these terms to theories they learn after.
neurologyYou need to know
- How to formulate null and alternative hypotheses
- Different types of variables – independent, dependent and extraneous
- Quantitative and qualitative methods
- Primary and secondary data
- Sampling methods – random, opportunity, systematic and stratified
- Experimental methods and experimental designs
- Correlations and the use of scatter diagrams to show relationships between variables
- Research procedures
- Ethical issues in psychological research and ways to deal with them
- Descriptive statistics – mean, median, mode and range.
rocket_launchYou must be able to
- Demonstrate knowledge of research methods, experimental designs and data handling techniques
- Apply research methods to scenarios, selecting and justifying appropriate methods, designs, sampling techniques and procedures
- Analyse and evaluate psychological investigations, considering reliability, validity, ethics and strengths and weaknesses.
- Calculate and interpret descriptive statistics, perform basic numeric calculations and interpret tables, graphs and scatter diagrams
Revision Quiz
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