AQA A Level Psychology Paper 2: Psychology in Context November 2021 question paper 7182/2

Outline the way in which Pavlov studied classical conditioning.

Some critics have said that Pavlov’s studies may lack ecological validity.

What is meant by the term ecological validity?

Jemima and Lily are identical twins. Lily complains to Jemima, “I don’t understand it. If we have the same genes, how come you have clearer skin than me and are much better at netball?”

Jemima laughs and replies, “Lily, we may be identical twins, but we are not identical people.”

Using your knowledge of genotype and phenotype, e xplain Lily’s and Jemima’s comments.

Lily and Jemima have a pet rat, which usually hides in a corner when they try to take it out of its cage. They have tried different ways to stop the rat hiding, but so far without success.

Use your knowledge of two types of reinforcement to suggest how Lily and Jemima could train their rat to come to the cage door when they open it.

Compare the humanistic approach with the psychodynamic approach.

Describe the structure and function of a neuron.

Studies have identified Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area as responsible for language.

Outline the difference in function between Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area.

Discuss ways of studying the brain.

A researcher placed an advert in a university psychology department asking for third year students to participate in a sleep experiment.

Each student had a sleep tracker watch to wear at home for the two-week study. Each morning they were asked to open the sleep tracker app to view their sleep quality data on their mobile phones. The students were unaware that the sleep data they could see on their phones had been manipulated by the researcher. Over the two weeks of the study, each student saw that he or she had had poor sleep quality for seven random nights of the experiment and good sleep quality for the remaining nights.

Every morning, after viewing the sleep data, each student completed a questionnaire about the previous night’s sleep. One of the questions asked the students to rate how well rested they felt, on a scale from 1–10, after the previous night’s sleep. Apart from this, students were asked to continue their normal everyday activities.

Which of the following best describes the experimental method used in this study?

Shade one box only.

A Field experiment

B Laboratory experiment

C Natural experiment

D Quasi-experiment

Write a directional hypothesis the researcher might use for this study.

Which of the following best describes the sampling method used in this study?

Shade one box only.

A Opportunity sampling

B Stratified sampling

C Systematic sampling

D Volunteer sampling

Explain one strength and one limitation of using this sampling method in this study.

The researcher collected quantitative data about how well rested the students felt.

Explain one strength of collecting quantitative data in this study.

One ethical issue in this study is deception, as the students were unaware that the sleep data they could see on their phones had been manipulated by the researcher.

Explain one way in which the researcher might deal with the deception in this study.

Apart from the question about how well rested the students felt, the researcher’s questionnaire contained nine other questions. The responses to these questions were not analysed.

Explain one reason why the researcher decided to include these additional questions on the questionnaire.

Explain one limitation of assessing sleep quality using a rating scale of 1–10.

The researcher believed that the actual number of hours slept by the students could have affected the results of the study.

Suggest one other extraneous variable that could have affected the results of this study. Explain why it would have been important to control this extraneous variable and how it could have been controlled in this study.

In a follow-up study, the researcher investigated whether there was a correlation between the number of hours slept and how well rested the students felt.

The researcher randomly selected 18 participants from first-year students at the university.

On the day of the study, each student participant was asked, ‘How many hours did you sleep last night?’ They then had to rate on a scale of 1 to 5 how well rested they felt.

The researcher hypothesised that there would be a positive correlation between the two co-variables.

Outline one reason why it was appropriate to conduct a correlation rather than an experiment in this case.

Describe how the researcher could have used random sampling to obtain the students for this study.

The researcher used Spearman’s rho statistical test to analyse the data from this study.

Explain why Spearman’s rho was a suitable test for this study. Refer to the description of the study in your answer.

The researcher chose to use the 5% level of significance and the calculated correlation coefficient for the Spearman’s rho test was 0.395

The calculated value of rho must be greater than or equal to the critical value to be significant.

Identify the appropriate critical value from Table 1. Explain your choice.

Explain whether the researcher’s hypothesis should be accepted. Refer to the critical value identified in Question 21 in your answer.

Explain why the researcher decided to use the 5% level of significance rather than the 1% level in this study.

When the researcher compared the calculated and critical values of rho, he began to wonder if he might have made a Type II error.

Explain what is meant by a Type II error in the context of this study.

Discuss features of science. Refer to one or more examples of psychological research in your answer.