PS102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Central Tendency, Statistical Significance, Naturalistic Observation
Document Summary
Refer to figure 2. 3 (diagram on research method) in textbook. Naturalistic and laboratory observations: playground versus big brother, in laboratory observations: can control certain variables, naturalistic observation is a no (ethical reasons) need consent from child & parent. Case studies: special samples (e. g. genie in linguistic isolation) At 17, once she was re immersed into society she only had the language capability of a 5-year-old. Quasi-experiments: similar to experiments; independent and dependant variables, experiments controlled to a certain extent; some content cannot be conducted particularly due to ethical concerns, cannot control participants but can control study method, half - half. Basic descriptive stats are needed in order to obtain values such as the mean. Determines correlations (if there is a relationship between the variables: inferential statistics. Used to give basic information about what we find. The mean, median, mode (known as measures of central tendency) Answered by values of standard deviation, the range (known as measures of variability)
