Psychology work research methods
(A) the aim of this study was to find out why people left the gym after a few months when they joined in
January.
(b) when using interviews you gain qualitative data
There is a reasonable probability of being able to repeat the findings in a similar study
© demand characteristics are where by an interviewer invites a participant to behave in a certain way by his
speech or actions
The participant might say what they think the interviewer wants them to say in order to appear helpful in
the study
(d) I think opportunity sampling (gaining a sample from people available at the time) would be used as it is
more convenient to the psychologists than random sampling as it is less expensive and time consuming
A weakness of this sampling method is that the sample you end up with may be nothing like a
representative sample of the population. This is because not every type of person will be there at one time
and so you may be missing out on other types of people.
(e) a pilot study should have been carried out before this experiment because you can identify what could
go wrong with the study and also make sure you have correct questions in you’re interview e.g. making
sure there are no questions with bias in them
(f) on average how many times a week do you/ did you visit the gym? Response would generate
quantitative data because the numbers given would allow you to create a graph to compare participants
results
Why have you joined the gym? What do you hope to achieve by doing so? Response would generate
qualitative data because participants are giving psychologists and insight into their thoughts and beliefs
(g) the right to withdraw and harm to participants should have been taken into account
Psychologists should have told participants that they had the right to leave the study whenever they wished
and allowed them to withdraw their data from the findings to exercise control over participation. Also to
avoid harm to participants psychologists should avoid difficult or embarrassing questions in the interview
such as tell me why you quite, is it because of gym management?
(A) the aim of this study was to find out why people left the gym after a few months when they joined in
January.
(b) when using interviews you gain qualitative data
There is a reasonable probability of being able to repeat the findings in a similar study
© demand characteristics are where by an interviewer invites a participant to behave in a certain way by his
speech or actions
The participant might say what they think the interviewer wants them to say in order to appear helpful in
the study
(d) I think opportunity sampling (gaining a sample from people available at the time) would be used as it is
more convenient to the psychologists than random sampling as it is less expensive and time consuming
A weakness of this sampling method is that the sample you end up with may be nothing like a
representative sample of the population. This is because not every type of person will be there at one time
and so you may be missing out on other types of people.
(e) a pilot study should have been carried out before this experiment because you can identify what could
go wrong with the study and also make sure you have correct questions in you’re interview e.g. making
sure there are no questions with bias in them
(f) on average how many times a week do you/ did you visit the gym? Response would generate
quantitative data because the numbers given would allow you to create a graph to compare participants
results
Why have you joined the gym? What do you hope to achieve by doing so? Response would generate
qualitative data because participants are giving psychologists and insight into their thoughts and beliefs
(g) the right to withdraw and harm to participants should have been taken into account
Psychologists should have told participants that they had the right to leave the study whenever they wished
and allowed them to withdraw their data from the findings to exercise control over participation. Also to
avoid harm to participants psychologists should avoid difficult or embarrassing questions in the interview
such as tell me why you quite, is it because of gym management?
