Approximately 800 participants were recruited by researchers visiting a community science festival to investigate prosocial behaviour and sharing frequency. The researchers used a cross-sectional design. The participants' willingness to help and self-reported helping frequency were measured, and their results were grouped into age categories.
To measure sharing behaviour, participants played a game on a tablet where they had to decide whether to donate virtual coins to various virtual characters in different scenarios (e.g., a character whose house had burned down). Participants were told to choose either 'share' or 'keep' by pressing on-screen buttons. The researchers expected the most prosocial individuals to make sharing decisions the quickest and to donate the maximum number of virtual coins.
To measure real-world helping frequency, participants were asked to self-report how many minutes they had spent helping family, friends, or strangers in the past 48 hours.
Identify and explain one weakness of the 'Helping Hands' study in terms of validity.
638 exam-style questions on Edexcel A Level Psychology Methods. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.