AQA A2 Psychology Coursework - Eye Witness Testimony?

Question

what statistical test is best used for an eyewitness testimony?

Answer 1

I always advise my students to ask themselves the following questions when choosing a statistical test:



1. Which type of design did you use? e.g. Repeated measures (related)



2. Are you looking for a difference or association? e.g. a correlation.



3. What level of data do you have? e.g. Nominal (number data when you're just counting the number of people who fall into a particular category).



By the way, you do NOT use parametric tests at this level, unless your TEACHER tells you to (if you use a parametric test when you shouldn't have done, you will lose marks for your results section. This is because the criteria for using parametric tests are extremely strict and aren't explained until at the least the 2nd year of a Psychology degree. Even my fellow teachers and I had difficulty with this issue when advising our coursework students and one of them has a doctorate in psychology and experience of supervising final year degree coursework)!



For more information on this, consult one of the following:



Your A level Psychology Teacher or friendly Psychology teacher at your school or college.



www.psyonline.org.uk



Free website for Psychology students and teachers (look up Student room-module resources-unit 6, coursework).



www dot freewebs dot com forward slash psychedout



My free non-profit making, non-commercial teaching resource website for my Psychology students (look up A2 resources and coursework to download my statistical test selector overhead). The website also contains an e-mail link if you want anymore help on this.



Research methods and Statistics in Psychology (3rd or 4th Edition)-Coolican, H



This book isn't general reading at A-Level BUT I highly recommend this book to all of my coursework students, as it covers a wide range of research methods topics from post GCSE to final year degree level. The book is also extremely readable and gives you detailed help in choosing and calculating statistical tests.



Your recommended A-level textbook:



e.g. Psychology for A-level/A2 level-Cardwell, M, Clark, L and Meldrum, C



I hope this answer helps!



Good luck with your coursework!



PS. If you used the term statistical test but you meant to say research method, I can't help you with that one, as you would lose coursework marks. However, the previous repliers gave you a good clue when they suggested Loftus & Palmer (hint). If you do decide to base your study on Loftus & Palmer's research, remember to make it clear that you either copied what they did exactly or made some changes of your own when writing up your coursework, in order to avoid being penalised for plagarism (cheating).

Answer 2

Personally, i'd go for something like Loftus and Palmer with their "sit people in a room, show them a video" type thing. Or if you wanted to get rid of the artificial-ness, set up a field experiment and create some kind of crime in the street (obviously one that doesn't harm anybody) and then find witnesses and ask them questions (debrief them also).

Answer 3

You'll have to give both sets of witnesses some kind of test to establish a baseline of their reliability to start off with. Otherwise you wont be able to measure how influenced some were by the leading questions. It could be that some of those you give the leading questions to are not very good eyewitnesses to start off with.

Answer 4

You're better off using something like the t test or maybe even chi squared for eye witness testimony to be honest!

Answer 5

Stick to Loftus and Palmer

Answer 6

it depends on the design of your study, how many variables, how many conditions and whether it's parametric or non-parametric (does it meet certain criteria, e.g. sample size of normal distribution).



If you want an answer you'd need to write the hypothesis, IV and DV really.

Answer 7

Mann whitney U?