Listed in alphabetical order. Use this as your ultimate exam revision guide for when you’re revising the Research Methodology unit.

Aims	The objective of the experiment.
Acquiescence Bias	A tendency for participants to give positive answers whatever the question may be.
Androcentric	The tendency to use a male’s perspective in generalized explanations of the world.
Bias	An inclination for a certain position/view.
Case Study	An in-depth investigation of an individual or a group.
Confirmation Bias	When a researcher conducts the research in an unintentional attempt to confirm a prior belief he has.
Content Analysis	To come up with dominant themes based on content in transcribed interviews.
Correlation	A measure of linear relationship between two variables.
Counterbalancing	Half of the sample completing the two conditions in one order and the other half completing the conditions in the reverse order, to reduce/ mitigate order effects in a repeated measures experiment.
Covert observation	Researcher does not inform participants about his presence to reduce demand characteristics.
Credibility	Trustworthy, ie. do results reflect reality?
Demand Characteristics	The changes in participants behavior (subconscious or not) to comply with experiment’s hypothesis.
Dependent Variable	The variable that is expected to be affected by changes to the independent variable, for example in an experiment hypothesizing calorie intake and weight gain, weight is the dependent variable.
Ethnocentric	The tendency to look at the world primarily from the perspective of one’s own culture.
Experiment	A type of investigation testing a hypothesis by manipulating the independent variable to observe results on the dependent variable.
Experimental Bias	When researchers unintentionally influence the participants or the research outcome based on their expectations or beliefs about what the results should be.
External Validity	The extent to which the results can be generalized to other contexts.
Fasifiable	Occurs when a theory can be proven wrong, ie. one case that contradicts it, to test the hypothesis and further science, according to Karl Popper. Conducted in real-life settings and deemed to have higher ecological validity than lab experiments.
Field Experiment
Independent Variable	The variable that is manipulated or changed by the researcher in an experiment, that the researcher believes will have an effect on the dependent variable.
Internal Validity	Degree of confidence that the causal relationship being tested is trustworthy and not influenced by extraneous factors/ biases.
Interview	A qualitative research method where the interviewer engages in an open-ended conversation with the participant.
Iterative Questioning	When interviewing participants in a qualitative research, returning to the topic later, rephrasing the same questions, to test for consistency and firm clarity.
Leading Questions	Questions that encourage respondents to answer in a certain way because of the wording, ie.Loftus and Palmer memory experiment.
Matched Pairs	An experimental design where pairs of participants are matched in terms of key variables, such as age.
Natural Experiment	Conducted in participants’ natural environment where researchers have no control over the the naturally-occurring IV, may be more ethical to study phenomenon that cannot be replicated, ie. inter-group violence. Researchers can only make deductions, by leveraging on naturally occurring events to study their impact.
Open Questions	Questions encouraging participants to provider richer description other than a “yes/no” answer.
Order Effects	When doing one condition of an experiment first affects your results in the second condition, includes boredom, fatigue and practice. For example participants become tired, resulting in shoddy second attempt.
Participant Bias	Includes acquiescence bias, social desirability and dominant respondent bias.
Qualitative data	Non-numeric data, including videos, audio recordings.
Quantitative data	Numeric data, ie. height, weight.
Qualitative research	Qualitative research an in-depth study of a particular phenomenon.
Quantitative research	Quantitative research operates with variables; and there are 3 types – experimental, correlational and descriptive.
Quasi experiment
Quota Sampling	Based on a quota of what sort of sample and the characteristics they must have, recruiters recruit participants until the quotas are met.
Reflexivity	Researchers should reflect on the possibility that their own biases might have interfered with the observations/ interpretations.
Repeated Measures	Repeated measures refer to a research design where the same exact group of participants participate in all conditions of the experiment. This design allows researchers to compare within-subject changes, minimizing individual differences and increasing statistical power. For example, a psychologist might use repeated measures to assess the effects of a new therapy by measuring participants’ anxiety levels before, during, and after treatment sessions.
Researcher Bias
Representativeness
Sample	A sample refers to a subset of individuals selected from a larger population to participate in a research study. It is essential for drawing conclusions about the population as a whole.
Snowball Sampling	Existing study participants recruit additional participants from their social network. This method is often used when the population of interest is difficult to access directly.
Social Desirability	The tendency to respond or behave in a way that they think will make them liked or accepted.
Standard Deviation	A measure of the dispersion or variability of scores in a data set around the mean. It indicates how much individual scores deviate from the average, providing insights into the spread of data points.
Structured Interview	asked in a specific order and is most useful when the research involves multiple interviewers and all need conduct the sessions in a similar way.
Triangulation	Triangulation is a research strategy where multiple methods, data sources, or investigators are used to corroborate findings and enhance the validity of research conclusions. It helps researchers confirm the robustness and reliability of their results by examining them from different perspectives.
Unstructured Interview	A qualitative research method where the interviewer engages in an open-ended conversation with the participant. Being participant-driven, unstructured interviews lack a predetermined sequence of questions, enabling exploration of topics more deeply and the discovery of unexpected insights. This approach encourages participants to express themselves freely, providing rich and detailed information for analysis.

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Read here for more on Natural, Field, Lab and Quasi Experiments