CORRELATIONS REVISION

1. WHAT YOU MUST KNOW DESCRIPTION OF; POSITIVE CORRELATION NEGATIVE CORRELATION ONE & TWO TAILED CORRELATIONAL HYPOTHESIS NULL HYPOTHESIS IDENTIFY THE 2 VARIABLES OPERATIONALISE THE VARIABLES SKETCH & LABEL A SCATTERGRAPH WRITE CONCLUSIONS 2 STRENGTHS & 2 WEAKNESSES CORRELATIONS REVISION

2. TYPES OF CORRELATIONS • Must be able to define: • Positive correlation • Negative correlation

3. EXAM QUESTIONS • What is meant by the term ‘positive correlation’? • What is meant by the term negative correlation? • This means that as one variable increases the value of the other variable will also increase • This means that as one variable increases the other variable being measured decreases

4. Hypothesis writing • ALL HYPOTHESIS MUST INCLUDE BOTH VARIABLES THAT THE CORRELATION IS TESTING • Must include the word SIGNIFICANT • ONE TAILED – must say if POSITIVE or NEGATIVE • Must include both of the variables • NULL HYPOTHESIS: must include there will be no relationship • Must include the word SIGNIFICANT • Any relationship is due to chance

5. EXAM QUESTIONS A researcher wanted to look at the relationship between age and peoples perception of attractiveness of animals. • Suggest an appropriate one tailed hypothesis for this correlation (4) • There will be a significant negative relationship between how people perceive attractiveness of an animal and how old they are. • Suggest an appropriate two tailed hypothesis for this correlation (4) • There will be a significant relationship between how people perceive attractiveness of an animal and how old they are. • There will be no significant relationship between how people perceive attractiveness of an animal and how old they are. Any relationship is due to chance. • Suggest an appropriate null hypothesis for this correlation (4)

6. IDENTIFYING VARIABLES • Must be able to clearly identify the variables being tested for a relationship • Clearly describe the 2 variables • Clearly explain how the variables are being measured

7. EXAM QUESTIONS A researcher wanted to look at the relationship between age and peoples perception of attractiveness of animals. • Name the variable the researchers are looking to investigate? • How can these variables be operationalised? • Explain how the two variables can be measured? • Age of P’s and their perception of attractiveness of animals • Each P’s will be asked to write down their age in years. Perception of attractiveness means whether they view the animal as ugly or not using a rating scale were 1 = very ugly 2=ugly 3= OK 4=attractive 5= very attractive • Each P’s will be asked to write down their age in years. Perception of attractiveness means whether they view the animal as ugly or not using a rating scale were 1 = very ugly 2=ugly 3= OK 4=attractive 5= very attractive

8. SCATTERGRAPHS • You must label each axis of the graph clearly • Which variable is being measured • Title must be detailed

9. EXAM QUESTIONS • Draw a scatter graph of the data in the table (4) • A scatter graph to show the relationship between the number of hours spent studying and they scores on an assessment

10. ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES • You must be able to give: • 2 advantages • 2 disadvantages • Correlations in general & linked specifically to the scenario you are given or procedure you have written

11. EXAM QUESTIONS • Give an advantage and disadvantage of the correlational method to analysing data (4) • One advantage is that it allows researchers to investigate topics that would not be available otherwise due to it being unethical such as looking at factors linked to child abuse. A disadvantage is that it is difficult to predict a cause and effect as a correlation only looks at the relationship between variables and may not take all other factors into account. A researcher wanted to look at the relationship between age and peoples perception of attractiveness of animals. • Give an advantage and disadvantage of using a correlation to investigate this topic. (4) • One advantage is that it would be more ethical than presenting the P’s with the actual animals and then measuring their reaction as no harm is being caused. A disadvantage is that P’s may lie about how they feel about the animals in the list as they don’t want to look silly in front of the researcher and so cause the results to be inaccurate.

12. EXAM QUESTIONS • Describe and evaluate an appropriate procedure that can be used to investigate this study An opportunity sampling method will be used to select 10 males and 10 females from the college social area. I will read them a short brief and ask them for their consent to take part. Once they have agreed I will hand out the pictures of the different animals and rating scale (1= very ugly 3=ok 5=very attractive). P’s will be asked to rate each animal according to the scale on the sheet. P’s will complete the sheet at a table at the back of the social area away from the other students present. Once complete they will be thanked and read a debrief. All results will be collated and plotted on a scatter graph. Overall the method used is ethical as everyone has to give their consent to take part after hearing a brief explaining what they have to do so if they are very afraid of any animal they can back out at that point. Another advantage is that the procedure is well controlled and so should be easily replicated as the picture sheets and rating scale are the same for all P’s which should increase the reliability of the results. A disadvantage is that people may give socially desirable answers as they don’t want to appear silly in front of the research which will cause the results to be less valid as you are no longer measuring their perception but what they think the researcher will want. Also the study will be low in generalisability as P’s are being collected from only one college social area and so will not be representative of students who sit in other areas such as the library.