A psychologist wants to test whether praising effort increases persistence in 14–15-year-olds. Eighty pupils are available. Persistence will be measured after pupils are given a difficult puzzle.
Evaluate how the psychologist could design this experiment. In your answer, you must consider variables and controls, sampling, experimental design, reliability, validity and ethics.
64 exam-style questions on Edexcel GCSE Psychology 11.1 Designing psychological research, covering 11.1.1 Identify variables, 11.1.2 Controlling extraneous variables, 11.1.3 Write a null hypothesis, 11.1.4 Write an alternative hypothesis, 11.1.5 Methods of sampling, 11.1.6 Experimental and research designs, 11.1.7 Reliability and validity, 11.1.8 Ethical issues in research, 11.1.9 Laboratory experiment, 11.1.10 Field experiment, 11.1.11 Natural experiment, 11.1.12 Interview, 11.1.13 Questionnaire, 11.1.14 Correlation, 11.1.15 Case study, and 11.1.16 Observation. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.