Psychology Investigations OCR Advantages and Disadvantages

Self-Report
1. Advantages
  1. Questionnaires are a quick and cheap way of gathering lots of data, especially quantitative
  2. Can access people's thoughts and feelings (which observation cannot)
2. Disadvantages
  1. Demand Characteristics: social desirability (lowers validity)
  2. People may lie, they therefore lack validity
3. Interviews
  1. Advantages
    1. Over questionnaires, In an unstructured interview further questions can be asked, there is flexibility
    2. Gives rise to rich qualitative data
  2. Disadvantages
    1. Compared to questionnaires, they are not as easy to analyse
    2. Experimenter effect (a demand characteristic) which lowers validity
    3. Unstructured interviews require trained interviewers, expensive
Observations
1. Disadvantages
  1. Lack of control, therefore not reliable
  2. Demand characteristics (if overt)
  3. Ethical issues if covert
2. Advantages
  1. High in ecological validity
  2. No demand characteristics (if covert)
Experiments
1. Advantages
  1. Standardised procedure therefore replicable
  2. High level of control over extraneous variables
  3. Can establish cause and effect by controlling extraneous variables
2. Disadvantages
  1. Lack of ecological validity
  2. Demand characteristics as situation is artificial, affecting validity
  3. Ethical issues of deception (especially in social psychology)
  4. Tend to be snapshot studies therefore reductionist
Field Studies
1. Advantages
  1. High in ecological validity
  2. Low in demand characteristics (if covert)
2. Disadvantages
  1. Ethical issues (if covert)
  2. High in demand characteristics (if overt)
  3. Lack of control lowers validity
Case Studies
1. Advantages
  1. Give rise to rich qualitative data
  2. Although unscientific, just one case study can be used to disprove a theory
  3. See development over time
2. Disadvantages
  1. Cannot generalise as only one participant
  2. Subjectivity may become a problem over time
  3. Ethical issues with long term and intense involvement
  4. Lack of control. Cannot be replicated
Quasi Experiments
1. Disadvantages
  1. Lack of control makes it more difficult to establish cause and effect
  2. Presence of extraneous variables may lower validity
  3. May be difficult to obtain a large enough sample
2. Advantages
  1. Ecologically valid as variables are naturally occuring
  2. Ethical issues with manipulation are aviod
Longitudinal Studies
1. Advantages
  1. Can see development over time
  2. Often case studies so plenty of rich qualitative data
  3. Contributes to nurture side of nature/nurture debate
  4. ecologically valid
2. Disadvantages
  1. Lack of control over variables lowers validity
  2. lack of control lowers replicability
  3. Subject attrition: subjects may drop out
  4. Ethical Issues with long term involvement
Repeated Measures
1. Advantages
  1. Controls for individual differences
  2. Need fewer participants
2. Disadvantages
  1. Demand characteristics/ transparency lowers validity
  2. Order effects: fatigue, boredom, practice lower validity
  3. Can't use exactly the same test so need to find one of same difficulty
Correlations
1. Advantages
  1. Investigates if there is a link between 2 variables, can act as pilot study
  2. Avoids ethical and practical issues with manipulation
  3. Ecologically valid
2. Disadvantages
  1. Cannot establish cause and effect
  2. Cannot control extraneous variables which may affect correlation
Deception
1. Disadvantages
  1. Unethical
  2. May discourage people from participating in research
2. Advantages
  1. Can increase validity
    1. Can increase ecological validity

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Psychology Investigations OCR Advantages and Disadvantages

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	Created by Georgia Stokes over 10 years ago