Presentation

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Internal assessment
Experimental research

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Considerations in experimental research
 What is the aim of the experiment?
 What studies and theories are considered in your research?
 How do you plan to manipulate and measure variables?
 How will you select participants?
 Can the effect of confounding variables be minimized? - for
example: How will you control for demand characteristics, order
effects and participant variables?
 Which experimental design will you use?
 How will you deal with ethical issues?
 How will you analyze the data you collect?
 How will you discuss your findings?
 How will you report your experiment?
 How will you reference your sources?

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Internal assessment
 Report according to IB guidelines
 Maximum of 2000 words (HL) or 1500
words (SL)
 HL/SL: a simple experiment
 Ethical considerations (informed consent)
 Use past tense
 Use 3rd
person

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Ethical considerations
 Non-human animals
must not be used
 No deception
 No harm done to
participants (physical
or psychological)
 Briefing
 Debriefing
 Right to withdraw
 Confidentiality
 Informed consent
 Children: parental
consent

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Consent Form.
• I have been informed about the nature of the experiment
• I understand that I have the right to withdraw from the experiment at any time,
and that any information/data about me will remain confidential
• My anonymity will be protected as my name will not be identifiable.
• The experiment will be conducted so that I will not be demeaned in any way.
• I will be debriefed at the end, and have the opportunity to find out the results.
I give my informed consent to participating in this experiment
NAME and date____________________________________________
Contact number_____________________________________________
Consent form

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Title page
 Information about the
student
 Name and number
 Subject and level
 Date of submission
 Word count
 Title
 Example of a title:
An experiment to
investigate the effect
of imagery or
rehearsal on recall

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Abstract
Right after the title page and before the table of
contents. It is a summary of important
information about the study including:
 The aim of the study
 Procedure
 Results of study
 Conclusion
The abstract should not exceed 200 words – and
is not included in the overall word count.

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Table of contents
 Table of contents follows the abstract.
 All pages must be numbered.

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Introduction: Background literature and
justification of your own research
 General introduction to the psychological subject area
under investigation
 Summary and analysis of key theories and previous
research studies in the area including references, e.g.
Stroop (1935)
 Theories and studies must be analysed in sufficient
detail – especially the replicated study
 2 - 3 studies (HL) or 1 study (SL)
 Rationale and justification of your experiment
 The aim (HL/SL) and hypotheses (HL)

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Introduction (Coolican, 1994)

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Aim of study
 Topic under investigation (e.g. Memory) and expected results
 What you intended to find out in the study (e.g. to investigate whether using
imagery or rehearsal will result in higher recall of words)
 Aim introduces operationalised research hypothesis and null hypothesis (HL)
Ex: The aim of the study was to investigate whether imagery or rehearsal resulted in
the highest mean recall of words from a word-list.
From the aim follow the experimental hypotheses (HL):
H1: The use of imagery will result in higher mean recall of words recalled from a
wordlist compared to the use of rehearsal
Alternative formulation of experimental hypothesis:
H1 Participants in the imagery condition will recall more words from a wordlist than
participants in the rehearsal condition
H0: There will be no difference in recall between the two conditions or any difference
between the two conditions will be due to chance.

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Research Hypotheses
 Clear and precise prediction of the
expected outcome of the manipulation of
the IV on the DV.
 Variables must be clearly operationalised
(using concrete words or abstracts words)
 A One-tailed hypothesis
 Null hypothesis: predicts that changes are
due to chance

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Examples
One-tailed: Participants given the office schema will
recall a higher amount of office related objects than
participants given no office schema.
Null hypothesis: There will be no difference in the two
situations or Higher recall of office related words will be
due to chance.
No Hypotheses in SL – only aim of study.

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Method consists of 4 sections
 Design
 type and justification of design (repeated measures/independent design),
controls, ethical considerations, identification of variables (IV and DV)
 Participants
 Relevant characteristics of sample, target population, sampling techniques
(justified)
 Apparatus/Materials
 list of materials used, reference to copies in appendices
 Procedure
 Must be written in so much detail that it can be replicated. Reference to
appendices for a copy of the material used.

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Designs – consider strengths
and limitations in each design
 Design must be justified (relate to why you choose a specific design and
refer to strengths)
 Independent design: each participant participates in only
one condition (random allocation of participants to conditions e.g. drawing
names out of a hat decides who goes in which condition)
 Larger sample needed so more time consuming
 No order effect but problem with participant variables. This is controlled for by
random allocation of participants to the experimental conditions.
 Repeated measures design: each participant participates
in both conditions
 Easier to get a smaller sample
 Order effects but counter-balancing possible
 No participant variables
 Account of controls in the experiment (what you did in
order to control for confounding variables)

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IV and DV
 Must be operationalised and clear
 Must reflect aim and experimental hypothesis
 Stated at the end of the design section
 The IV in this experiment was whether
participants used rehearsal or imagery
 The DV was amount of words correctly recalled
from the wordlist

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Selection of participants
 20 participants in an IB experiment
 Justify your sampling method
 In principle good to have a represenative sample but nor
really possible in IA. Ask the following questions:
 What is the target population? (the population
you are interested in) What are relevant
characteristics of your sample? your target
population? Does your sample represent them?
 In IB exp.: Opportunity sample: you take what is available
because it is the most convenient and easiest
 Easy and not time consuming (strenght)
 Not a representative sample (weakness)

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Procedure
 Clear description of what you did and in what
order
 Written in words (see samples)
 Must be so clear that it can be replicated by
another researcher
 Refer to materials used in the experiment (and
make a reference to an example of it in the
appendices)
 Use past tense, the third person and the passive
voice: The participants were asked to .......

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Results
 State your results in narrative and in the form of
graphs, tables and statistical test
 Interpretation of descriptive statistics (e.g. mean,
standard deviation + graph and table)
 Analysis using inferential statistics and justification for
their use (HL only) – check which tests to use in
decision chart. Specific tests related to design, level of
measurement of data and the fact that you test a
difference between two conditions.
 Graphs/tables should have appropriate titles and
legend.
 No raw data in result section (must be in the
appendices)

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Discussion of results
 Discussion and interpretation of statistics
 Comparison of own results to the background
literature and theoretical framework in the
Introduction (only mention theories and studies
that have been mentioned in the intro; don’t
introduce new ones).
 Identification of limitations of own methodology
 Suggestions for modification and further research
(link this to identified limitations)
 End with a conclusion (refer to aim or research
hypothesis)

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References
 Includes al work cited within the report and must be in a
standardised format
 For example: Morrison, M. (1996) Psychology. Essays, practical &
statistics. A guide for students. Singapore: Longman.
 For example: Loftus, E.F. and Palmer, J.C. (1974) “Reconstruction
of automobile destruction: An example of the Interaction between
language and memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal
Behavior 13, 584-589.
 Reference in report (footnote), e.g. Gross (2009), p. 6
 Same in references (bibliography)Gross, R. (2009) Psychology. The
Science of Mind and Behaviour. 5th ed. London:Hodder Arnold

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Appendices
 Supplementary information
 One copy of the materials(s) used
 Copy of standardized instructions and
debriefing notes
 Copy of informed consent paper (including
parental consent if participants are
children)
 Raw data
 Calculation of statistics

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Check list
 Use check list paper to see if your report
lives up to the assessment criteria.
 Check the assessment criteria also