OCR A Level Psychology Research methods June 2019 question paper H567/01

What type of distribution refers to a situation in which the majority of participants score highly on the measure on which they are assessed?

A bimodal

B negatively skewed

C normal

D positively skewed

Which of these best describes what a ‘Type 2’ error refers to?

A incorrectly accepting the null hypothesis

B incorrectly rejecting the null hypothesis

C use of the incorrect inferential statistical test

D use of the incorrect tables of critical values

When would it be best to use the median rather than the mean?

A when there are a few scores much lower than the rest

B when there are a few scores very similar to each other

C when there is a large number of scores overall

D when there is a small number of scores overall

Which of these inferential statistical tests is the only one that does not involve ranking of the data at some stage?

A Chi-square

B Mann Whitney U test

C Spearman’s Rho

D Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test

A study investigating the difference in aggression between boys and girls recorded the number of times a child shouted at someone during playtime. Which of the following would be the appropriate inferential test to use to analyse the data from this study?

A Binomial sign test

B Chi-square

C Mann Whitney U test

D Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test

Which symbol in statistics means ‘approximately’?

A

B <

C ~

D

What type of validity refers to the extent to which the scores on one measure are able to predict the outcome on another related measure?

A criterion

B ecological

C face

D population

Which of these is the name of an interviewing technique where the researcher has no pre-planned questions?

A free form

B open

C unplanned

D unstructured

For which of the following would it be appropriate to use a line graph to display the data?

A differences in the ability of males and females to identify six emotions displayed on the face

B number of acts of aggression displayed by boys and girls

C preference for four different learning styles displayed as percentages

D self-ratings of aggression (1 to 10) at different times of day (10am to 10pm)

In the study by Simons and Chabris investigating inattentional blindness, how was the dependent variable operationalised?

A detection of ‘gorilla’

B duration of video clip played

C estimation of number of players present

D number of passes of basketball counted

In the study by Baron-Cohen et al., what sampling technique was used to obtain the high functioning adults with autism (HFA)?

A opportunity

B self-selected

C snowball

D random

What fraction is represented by the decimal 0.05?

Which of the calculated values from a Spearman’s Rho test best reflect the correlation displayed

A r_s = +0.2

B r_s = +0.8

C r_s = –0.2

D r_s = –0.8

Which of these is the name of a section of the write-up of a practical report that provides a summary of the research conducted?

A abject

B ablate

C absinth

D abstract

What name is given to the type of data collected directly by the researchers?

A preliminary

B precursor

C principal

D primary

What type of data is displayed in a histogram?

A anomalous

B continuous

C nominal

D ranked

Which is true of a field experiment?

A has an independent variable

B has an independent variable that cannot be manipulated

C has an independent variable that is always naturally occurring

D has no independent variable

Which is true of a naturalistic observation?

A always conducted in an outdoor location

B conducted in a place where the behaviour studied usually occurs

C has a naturally occurring independent variable

D has data collected by someone who is part of the research team

What is a coding frame?

A a technique that enables qualitative data to be recorded as quantitative

B a technique that enables quantitative data to be recorded as qualitative

C a technique that enables ordinal data to be recorded as nominal

D a technique that enables interval data to be recorded as nominal

What does the term ‘representativeness’ refer to?

A the extent to which the findings can be applied to everyday life

B the extent to which the findings can be applied to other related research

C the extent to which the findings can be applied to the population

D the extent to which the findings can be applied to the sample

Weigh more outgoing?

Some research suggests that personality is linked to a person’s body type (their structure and weight), with larger people having a more extrovert (lively and outgoing) personality than those who are smaller. To investigate this further, a psychologist wants to use the correlation technique to examine the relationship between weight and extroversion.

21 Write an alternative one-tailed hypothesis for this study.

22* Explain how you would conduct a study using the correlation technique to investigate if there is a relationship between a person’s weight and their level of extroversion. Justify your decisions as part of your explanation. You must refer to:

• the sampling technique to obtain participants for the study

• how you would operationalise the variable ‘extroversion’

• details of how one ethical consideration would be addressed

• the control of one extraneous variable.

You should use your own experience of practical activities to inform your response.

Outline how you could obtain secondary data to use as the measurement of the variable ‘weight’.

Outline one strength of the use of secondary data in this study.

Outline one weakness of having quantitative data in this study.

Suggest one open question that could provide additional information in the form of qualitative data for use in this study.

Outline one strength of having some qualitative data in this study.

Explain one way that the design of this study could increase the generalisability of the findings from this study.

Steps to increase bin use

Research suggests that, when trying to encourage people to change their behaviour in some way, ‘telling people what to do’ is not always effective and a more subtle approach may be better (‘nudge theory’). To investigate this, a psychologist conducted an observation study monitoring people’s use of two different types of litter bin situated close to each other in the pedestrian area of one large town centre – one that had steps printed on the pavement leading up to it and another without the steps. Recordings were made each time any item was deposited in the bin throughout a continuous period from 10am to 2pm. The data on how many people used the bins is presented in the table below.

27 Draw a fully labelled bar chart showing the overall use of the two different types of bin.

Calculate the percentage of people who used the bin with steps leading up to it. Show your workings and present your finding to two significant figures.

Outline two conclusions that can be obtained from the data collected in this study.

Calculate the degrees of freedom for use with the Chi-square test in this study. Show your workings.

The psychologist obtained a calculated value of 0.4058 after analysing the data with the Chi-square test. Write a significance statement presenting this finding showing if the results are significant at the 5% level of probability or not.

What does the analysis from the Chi-square test inform us regarding the use of the two different types of bin from this study?

Outline one strength of the use of the nominal data collected in this study.

Outline one weakness of the use of the nominal data collected in this study.

Explain what it would mean if there was a ‘Type 1 error’ in this study.

Outline one weakness of the use of event sampling to record the data in this study.