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Research Methods practice questions Pack AQA ALevel Psychology
32 practice questions for the Research methods topic in AQA ALevel Psychology. Both year 1 and year 2 content included. Contains example answers/mark scheme.
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Q1.A psychologist showed participants 100 different cards, one at a time.
Each card had two unrelated words printed on it, e.g. DOG, HAT.
Participants in one group were instructed to form a mental image to link the words.
Participants in the other group were instructed simply to memorise the words.
After all the word pairs had been presented, each participant was shown a card with
the first word of each pair printed on it. Participants were asked to recall the second word.
The following results were found.
Number of words correctly recalled
Mental Image Group Memorising Group
Mean Score 80 45
(a) What is the independent variable (IV) in this study?
(2)
(b) What is the dependent variable (DV) in this study?
(2)
(c) What experimental design was used in this study?
(1)
(d) Explain one strength of this experimental design in the context of this study.
(2)
(e) Explain how a psychologist could find out whether these results are reliable.
(2)
(Total 9 marks)
Q2.
Psychologists have carried out research into the use of cognitive interviews. One possible
ethical issue which might arise during this research is protection of participants from harm.
Explain how psychologists could deal with this ethical issue.
(Total 3 marks)
Q3.
Some psychology students read about an experiment which suggested that organisation
is a useful strategy for improving memory. The students carried out an experiment to
investigate the effects of organisation on word recall. They made up a list of 50 items that
could be bought in a supermarket. The participants were teachers at their school. One
group of participants saw the words organised into categories such as fruit, vegetables,
dairy products and cleaning materials. The other group saw the same words presented
randomly.
The results are given in the Table below.
Page 1 of 58
, The number of words correctly recalled by participants who saw the organised
list and participants who saw the random list
Organised List Random List
20 15
15 13
18 19
45 14
24 20
23 10
28 21
21 6
25 22
30 25
Measure of central tendency
Measure of dispersion
(a) Identify a suitable measure of central tendency that could be used with these data.
Justify your answer.
(2)
(b) The psychology students decided to use a volunteer sample. Suggest one way in
which this sample could be obtained.
(2)
(c) Suggest one possible extraneous variable in this study.
(1)
(d) Suggest one way in which the students could control for this extraneous variable.
(2)
(Total 7 marks)
Q4.
A recent study recorded the amount of time that children spent in day care from birth to
four years, and asked each child’s mother to rate her child for aggression and
disobedience. The study found that, as the time spent in day care went up, the mothers’
rating of aggression and disobedience also went up.
(a) What kind of correlation is this research showing?
(1)
(b) Outline one strength and one weakness of using correlational research to
Page 2 of 58
, investigate the effects of day care.
(4)
(Total 5 marks)
Q5.
A teacher has worked in the same primary school for two years. While chatting to the
children, she is concerned to find that the majority of them come to school without having
eaten a healthy breakfast. In her opinion, children who eat ‘a decent breakfast’ learn to
read more quickly and are better behaved than children who do not. She now wants to set
up a pre-school breakfast club for the children so that they can all have this beneficial start
to the day. The local authority is not willing to spend money on this project purely on the
basis of the teacher’s opinion and insists on having scientific evidence for the claimed
benefits of eating a healthy breakfast.
(a) Explain why the teacher’s personal opinion cannot be accepted as scientific
evidence.
Refer to some of the major features of science in your answer.
(6)
A psychologist at the local university agrees to carry out a study to investigate the claim
that eating a healthy breakfast improves reading skills. He has access to 400 five-year-old
children from 10 local schools, and decides to use 100 children (50 in the experimental
group and 50 in the control group). Since the children are so young, he needs to obtain
parental consent for them to take part in his study.
(b) The psychologist used a random sampling method. Explain how he could
have obtained his sample using this method.
(3)
(c) Explain limitations of using random sampling in this study.
(3)
(d) Explain why it is important to operationalise the independent variable and the
dependent variable in this study and suggest how the psychologist might do
this.
(5)
(e) The psychologist used a Mann-Whitney test to analyse the data. Give two reasons
why he chose this test.
(2)
(f) He could have used a matched pairs design. Explain why this design would have
been more difficult to use in this study.
(2)
(g) Other than parental consent, identify one ethical issue raised in this study and
explain how the psychologist might address it.
(2)
(h) The psychologist asks some of his students to conduct a separate observational
study at the same time on the same group of children. The aim of this observational
study is to test the idea that eating a healthy breakfast affects playground behaviour.
Design an observational study to investigate the effects of a healthy breakfast on
playground behaviour. Include in your answer sufficient detail to allow for reasonable
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, replication of the study. You should state the hypothesis you are setting out to test.
In your answer, refer to:
• an appropriate method of investigation
• materials/apparatus and procedure.
Justify your design decisions.
(12)
(Total 35 marks)
Q6.
One measure of the functioning of the immune system is the level of activity of white blood
cells.
What does the graph below tell you about the relationship between stress and the level of
activity of white blood cells?
Relationship between stress and the level of activity of white blood cells
(Total 2 marks)
Q7.
A psychologist was interested in testing a new treatment for people with eating disorders.
She put up adverts in several London clinics to recruit participants. Thirty people came
forward and they were all given a structured interview by a trained therapist. The therapist
then calculated a numerical score for each participant as a measure of their current
functioning, where 50 indicates excellent, healthy functioning and zero indicates failure to
function adequately. The psychologist then randomly allocated half the participants to a
treatment group and half to a no-treatment group. After eight weeks, each participant was
Page 4 of 58
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