Psychology

Internal Assessment!

Course Companion Pages 388-402

Get Excited!!!!!!!!

What is the Psychology Internal Assessment?It is a replication of a simple experiment.

Overview of Steps:1. Pick your group. You may work in groups of 3-4 peers.2. Pick your experiment to replicate. Must be able to be done in 5-10 min. 3. Pick a teacher's class and day you would like to conduct your experiment. You must give the teacher MORE THAN ONE DAY NOTICE!4. Come up with the AIM of your study (Introduction) and your Method5. Conduct your experiment; collect data (make sure your experiment is ethical and you've received consent forms from participants)6. Analyze data in results and discussion section of paper.7. Conclude your write-up. Even though you work in groups, EVERYONE must complete their own report!

Ethical Guidelines for IA

-Any experimental study that creates anxiety, stress, pain, or discomfort is NOT permitted- Any experimental study that involves unjustified deception, involuntary participation, on invasion of privacy must be avoided- All participants must be informed before commencing that they have the right to withdraw AT ANY TIME. Pressure will not be placed on participants to finish.-Each participant must be informed of the aim and objectives of the research and offered to be given results of the research.-All data collected must be kept CONFIDENTIAL.-ALL participants must be debriefed and given a chance to withdraw their data.- ALL participants must sign an INFORMED CONSENT form. If the participants are 16 years or older, they may sign their own. Under 16, you must obtain parental consent. *A copy of your Informed Consent form MUST be included in the appendices in the internal assessment report.

A. Introduction

I. Focus only on the study being replicated. Explain the study by including the aim, procedures, findings, and conclusions of the ORIGINAL STUDY. This will help you make comparisons after you conduct the experiment.

II. Explain WHY you think this study is worth replicating. What value does it have on our understanding of human behavior?

III. Conclude your introduction by clearly stating the aim of your research:

AIM: to investigate the effects of particular adjectives on the formation of impressions.

The Report:

The Report:

B) Method: DesignI. Identify the design you used. You can choose between an independent samples design or a repeated measures design. Independent Samples Design: use 2 different groups of participants; have a treatment and control group for comparisonRepeated Measures: use same participants in the treatment and control group

II. Explain and justify why you chose that design (ie: used an independent samples design to avoid order effects) and describe the controls you have undertaken to avoid extraneous variables (ie: giving a standardized debriefing to the participants)

III. Identify the independent and dependent variables.

IV. Document how ethical guidelines were followed- explain how consent was obtained and how the briefing and debriefing were carried out. *Debriefing Notes and Informed Consent should be attached to your appendix!

The Report:

C) Method: Participants

This section should describe your sample and how it was obtained. A sample size of 20 is sufficient. Larger samples are discouraged!

I. Identify and justify your sampling procedures (random, opportunity, etc). Example: "Opportunity sampling was chosen because it was the most convenient."

II. Also, explain how participants were allocated the treatment or control group.

III. Relevant characteristics of the sample should be identified. (For example, English proficiency, color blindness, etc... )

IV. Describe the sample in terms of the number of participants, age, and gender distribution

Example of Methods: Participants

"The 20 participants (N=20) were evenly distributed between males and females; the mean was 16. Because of the nature of the experiment, it was important that participants were not color-blind and that they were fluent in English."

The Report:

Materials

Make sure to include in your report a list of materials used for your experiment. Basic materials such as pencils, paper etc does not need to be listed. However, any written materials such as word lists for recall, that were specifically developed for the experiment should be listed and referenced to a sample copy in your appendix.

*The standardized briefing notes, informed consent letters, and standardized debriefing notes should be included in your appendix.

The Report:

D) Methods: Procedure

Can be written in either paragraph or bullet-point format

Carefully and accurately describe how the experiment was carried out in enough DETAIL that another researcher could replicate the experiment from your description. Don't forget to acknowledge things like when you read the briefing/debriefing notes.

The Report:

E) Results: The results should be stated in 1) a narrative form AND in 2) a graph form. Both should give enough information that reader should understand the results independent of the other. Make sure graphs include proper labels, with titles, etc

There are 4 levels of measurement of the data:

QUALITATIVE1. Nominal: (simplest) The data collected is place in categories and you simply count how many fall into each category, ie: smokers and non-smokers2. Ordinal: (ranks) The data is compared by who came in first, second, third, etc. An example of this is the Likert Scales.

QUANTITATIVE 3. Interval: Data is measured on a scale which has precise and equal intervals (ie: Temperature)4. Ratio: Ratio data have all the characteristics of interval data, plus they have a true zero point.

The Report:

Quick overview of Statistics:

Measures of Central Tendency:mean (average)median (# in the middle)mode (most frequently occurring)

Measures of Dispersion:Standard Deviation- average distance of each data point from the mean.

Range- the difference between the highest and the lowest values in a set

The Report:

F) Discussion: FINAL part of you paper! This is also the MOST IMPORTANT part of your paper and is weighed the heaviest in the amount of points allotted for this so make sure to spend sufficient time and energy on this!

I. Interpret your own results in the light of the previous study. You must refer to the studies and theories presented in your introduction and analyze how your results were similar/dissimilar to the study you replicated.

II. Analyze and evaluate your methodology. Be sure to discuss the limitations that may have affected the outcome of the experiment. Identify possible extraneous variables that may have influenced the study.

III. Suggestions for modifications for future replications should also be included. Ideally, these should match the limitations you addressed from your own study. Also, you can mention suggestions for further research that this has arisen questions for further investigation, but was different than the purpose of this replication.

IV. A brief conclusion should be presented, summarizing the results of the experiment.

F) Discussion: (continued)

The Report:

The Report:

G. Presentation:The report needs to be in the correct format within the 1,000- 1,500 word limit. References are provided using one standard method of listing references consistently. Include a Table of Contents.

I. Title Page: The title must include the method used (experiment), the topic under investigation (recall), and the variable (category headings and their impact on word recall).

Example of Good Title: "An experiment to investigate the effect of category headings on the recall of a list of words."

Example of Bad Title: "An experiment on memory" is not specific enough.

II. Abstract: (max 200 words) summary of the important info about the study. It should clearly state the aim, procedure, results, and conclusion. Identify the independent and dependent variables. This is the LAST section of the report to be written.

III. References: APA Style; Do NOT include works that are not cited.

IV. Appendices: Include blank copies of any supplemental info, as well as materials used, such as standardized instructions, briefing notes, informed consent letters, debriefing notes, and calculations. The info needs to be sufficient to allow the experiment to be replicated. Tables of raw data must be included here. It is not necessary to include all participant responses. One blank copy is sufficient. Make sure each appendix is numbered and has an appropriate title. (ie: Appendix 4: Calculation of the Mann Whitney U)

G. Presentation: Continued

The Report:

FAQ's

Q: Do I have to do the IA if I'm not in IB or I don't plan on getting IB credit? A: YES. The IA is a mandatory part of the course curriculum. Your completion of the IA is crucial for your class participation grade. Plus, it's FUN!

Q: What experiments are off-limits? A: Conformity and Obedience Studies, Animal Research, Placebo Experiments, Experiments involving ingestion (foods, drinks, etc), Experiments involving deprivation (sleep, food, etc), Experiments involving young children, quasi-experiments (where the independent variable is naturally occurring such as gender, age, ethnicity, etc)

A) Studies on MEMORYB) Studies on PERCEPTION, THINKING AND PERFORMANCEC) Studies DRIVES AND MOTIVATION

*See handout for experiment options.

Ideas for experiments to replicate:

http://www.ibpsychology.com/Internal%20assessment/ia.htm

Examples:

Questions????

Yay, it's IA Time!