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A-Level Psychology Research Methods Exam With A-Grade Answers

The psychologist conducted a study to test whether listening to music improves running performance. A repeated measures design was used where 10 participants ran 400m both with and without music on separate occasions. Running times were recorded in seconds. The results showed participants ran slightly faster on average when listening to music, but there was more variability in times between participants. A related t-test found the results were not statistically significant.

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110 views

A-Level Psychology Research Methods Exam With A-Grade Answers

The psychologist conducted a study to test whether listening to music improves running performance. A repeated measures design was used where 10 participants ran 400m both with and without music on separate occasions. Running times were recorded in seconds. The results showed participants ran slightly faster on average when listening to music, but there was more variability in times between participants. A related t-test found the results were not statistically significant.

Uploaded by

wadhwani
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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A-Level Psychology

Research Methods Exam


with A-Grade Answers
By PsychLogic, published Feb 18, 2020

A psychologist wanted to test whether listening to music improves running


performance.

The psychologist conducted a study using 10 volunteers from a local gym. The
psychologist used a repeated measures design. Half of the participants were
assigned to condition A (without music) and half to condition B (with music).

All participants were asked to run 400 metres as fast as they could on a
treadmill in the psychology department. All participants were given
standardised instruction. All participants wore headphones in both conditions.

The psychologist recorded their running time in seconds. The participants


returned to the psychology department the following week and repeated the
test in the other condition.

(a) Identify the type of experiment used in this study.


A. Laboratory
B. Natural
C. Quasi
D. Research
(1 mark)
“It is an artificial situation where the experimenter manipulates the
variables of music/no music and participants know they are taking
part in a study.”

(b) Identify the operationalised dependent variable in the study. (2 marks)

“How fast participants could run 400m on a treadmill measured in


seconds”.
(Note how specific this is…)

(c) The results of the study are given in Table 1 below.

Table 1. Mean number of second taken to complete the 400m run and the
standard deviation for both conditions.

Condition A Condition B
Mean 400m time (s) 123 117
Standard deviation 9.97 14.5

Explain why a histogram would not be an appropriate way of displaying


the means shown in Table 1.
(2 marks)

“Data shown in the table is not at the interval level of measurement.”


(d) Name a more appropriate graph to display the means shown in Table 1.
Suggest appropriate X (Horizontal) and Y (vertical) axis labels for your
graph choice.
(3 marks)

Name of graph
Mean number of second taken to complete the 400m run for
condition A (no music) and condition B (music).
X axis label
Condition A (without music), Condition B (with music)
Y axis label
Mean 400m time (s)

(e) What do the mean and standard deviation values in Table 1 suggest
about the participants’ performances with and without music? Justify your
answer. (4 marks)

“Listening to music caused, on average, slightly faster speed than


not listening to music (117 s. compared to123 s.) This suggests that
listening to music results in a faster running speed. The SD figure
for Condition B (music) of 14.5 is higher than Condition A (no
music) of 9.97. This means that there was more average variability
from the mean score when participants listened to music: i.e. some
ran quite a lot faster and some ran quite a lot slower than the mean
average whereas for Condition A each participant’s speed was more
consistent/more closely clustered around the mean. This suggests
that music may have helped some participants run faster and
caused some participants to run slower.”
(f) Calculate the percentage decrease in the mean time it took participants
to run 400 metres when listening to music. Show your workings. Give your
answer to three significant figures. (4 marks)

“Mean speed reduced from 123 to 117 = 6 seconds slower.


To calculate % decrease in speed: 6/123 x 100 = 4.878% decrease in
speed (3 d.p.)”

The researcher used a directional hypothesis and analysed the data using a
related t-test. The calculated value of t where degrees of freedom (df) = 9 was
1.4377. He decided to use the 5% level of significance.

Table 2. Table of critical values of t

Level of significance for


0.05 0.025
a one-tailed test
Level of significance for
0.10 0.05
a two-tailed test
df = 1 6.314 12.706
2 2.920 4.303
3 2.353 3.182
4 2.132 2.776
5 2.015 2.571
6 1.943 2.447
7 1.895 2.365
8 1.860 2.306
9 1.833 2.262
10 1.812 2.228

Calculated value of t must be equal to or greater than the critical value in this
table for significance to be shown
(g) Give three reasons why the researcher used a related t-test in this study
and, using Table 2, explain whether or not the results are significant.

(5 marks)

Why researcher used a related t-test.


Answer
“Because it is a test of difference using a repeated measures design with
interval level data.”
Are results significant?
Answer.
“The results are not significant because the calculated value of t (1.4377)
< the CV (1.833) (1-tailed test, p = 0.05, df = 9). Therefore, the
experimental hypothesis should be rejected.”
Explanation + notes.
The above is the quickest way of writing the correct answer. The way to
work out the correct answer is

1. What is the observed/calculated value? In this case it is the value of t =


1.4377.

2. Find the correct critical value (CV) on the table. You need to cross-
reference the correct level of significance (we are told it is 0.05) for the
correct one/two-tailed test (we are told it’s directional/one-tailed) with
the correct df value (which we are told is 9). Cross-referencing this gives
us the CV value of 1.833.

3. The rule for the related t-test (written under the table) is that if the
calculated value > than the CV then the result is significant. The
calculated value of t is smaller than the CV (1.4377 < 1.833) therefore the
result is not significant.”
(i) Identify one extraneous variable that could have affected the results of
this study. Suggest why it would have been important to control this
extraneous variable and how it could have been controlled in this study.
(3 marks)

Use your imagination:

“The type of music being played could have acted as an extraneous


variable. Some participants may have particularly disliked the music
being played and this dislike may have caused them to run more
slowly. Therefore, it may not have been the simple presence or
absence of music which affected running speed but how much they
liked/disliked the music they were listening to.”

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