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What is a hypothesis? Give an example of a hypothesis, based

on a study you know about.

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Today’s session

You will learn about Context

Formulating & testing experimental hypothesesSummarising data using mean & standard deviation

Studies of social and cognitive psychology

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Hypothesis

A prediction about the outcome of a piece of research

An experimental hypothesis must predict the effect of the IV on the DV

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Experimental hypotheses

A researcher dressed in uniform will be obeyed more often than a researcher dressed in civilian clothes.

Words that PPs have processed semantically are more likely to be recognised than words that they have processed structurally.

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Experimental hypotheses

Suggest experimental hypotheses for the following studies: Jenkins & Dallenbach (1924) Godden & Baddeley (1975)

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Experimental hypotheses

Directional hypotheses predict the direction in which the results are expected to run

Non-directional hypotheses predict an effect of the IV on the DV, but not a direction

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Jenkins & Dallenbach (1924)

PPs who learn the word list before sleeping will recall more words than PPs who learn the list after waking.

There will be a difference in the number of words recalled between PPs who learn the list before sleeping and those who learn it after waking.

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Testing hypotheses

Hypotheses predict results of experiments

They must be tested against the data and either accepted or rejected

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Summarising data

Before we can assess whether the data support or challenge the experimental hypothesis we must prepare a statistical summary

Any set of data can be summarised to two figures: Central tendency Dispersion

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Summarising data

Central tendency Tells you a typical

value from a set of data

Mode Median Mean

Dispersion Tells you how close

to the central tendency the values in the set are

Range Standard deviation

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Concept maps vs. notes

IV: revision strategy used DV: score on a recall test (max. 20) H1: PPs using concept maps will recall more than PPs

using notes.

Concept map Notes

Mean 15.6 13.7

S.Deviation 5.2 2.3

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Organised vs. disorganised

IV: info in categories or randomised DV: score on a recall test (max. 20) H1: there will be a difference in recall between PPs

who are give organised info and PPs who are given disorganised info.

Organised Disorganised

Mean 13.4 12.3

S.Deviation 1.6 6.2

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Review

Identify… One thing you already knew One fact you learned One skill you developed Something that was difficult and will need

more work.