Psychology week 2 - Chapter 2

a theory - a systematic way of organising and explaining observatins

expose participants in a study to as similar procedures as possible.

a systematic way of organising and explaining observations; different schools of thought promoting different theories.

a tentative belief about the way two (or more) variables interact/impact each other

the entire group of people that a researcher is interested in

• whether research results (from the sample) can be applied to the entire population of interest, and requires:
• Internal validity: Are the procedures of the study sound or are they flawed?
• External validity:  Does the experimental situation resemble the situation found in the real world?

• Reliable: Produce consistent measurements over time, or amongst items in a scale of measurement
• Valid: Actually measure the variable of interest; or is a measure used for the purposes for which it is designe

• Description = summarising data produced in a way that makes the events and the relationship between them easily understandable.
• Prediction = using outcome of research to identify what is likely to occur in the future
• Understanding = identifying the causal factors that led to the results found

the amount that the average participate deviates from the mean of the sample.

75 percent of those in this position, under these circumstances, earn less than this amount.