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Question 1
Describe how questions and instructions can be standardized in a questionnaire to limit bias.
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Question 2
A class practical investigated how students support their friends. Twelve members of the student council volunteered after an invitation at a council meeting. They completed a questionnaire asking, “How often do you do the right thing and help a friend?”, writing their names on the forms while sitting beside other council members.
Explain the concept of bias in relation to this questionnaire practical.
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Question 3
Describe how behaviour can be recorded systematically in a naturalistic observation to limit bias.
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Question 4
A class practical investigated sharing during play among children of different ages. Three parents known to the researchers volunteered their children, and appropriate consent and agreement were obtained for observing them during their usual play sessions. Expecting older children to share more, the observers counted an older child's placing a toy between two children as sharing but counted the same action by a younger child as accidental.
Apply the concept of bias to the recording of behaviour in this practical.
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Question 5
Compare and contrast the research methodology of a questionnaire and a structured interview, with reference to how bias may affect the evidence collected.
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Question 6
A class practical investigated students' experiences of disagreements with friends. Ten students who were available in one common room agreed to participate, and the researchers asked them to complete named questionnaires while discussing their answers together. Every question assumed that disagreements damaged friendships, and the researchers used the responses to make claims about all students in the school.
Design a questionnaire procedure for investigating this aim while reducing bias.
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Question 7
Compare and contrast naturalistic observation and a true experiment in terms of their procedures and the opportunities for bias to influence their findings.
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Question 8
Researchers investigated how hospital employees experienced taking breaks during night shifts. They invited staff through an announcement at a voluntary workplace well-being session. Fourteen employees volunteered, including eleven nurses and three administrative workers. All worked at the same hospital. The researchers hoped their findings would help hospitals improve staff well-being.
Each employee took part in a private, recorded interview lasting approximately 30 minutes. The interviewer was a hospital manager who helped organize the well-being sessions but did not directly supervise the participants. Employees received information about recording and withdrawal and were told that their names would not appear in the report. Interviews took place in the manager's office immediately after a shift.
The interviewer asked everyone the same six opening questions and could ask additional questions. One opening question was, “How have regular breaks helped you cope with the demands of night work?” When employees described benefits, the interviewer asked for examples. When they described difficulties taking breaks, the interviewer usually moved to the next question. Some employees mentioned that taking a break left colleagues with additional work.
The interviewer selected extracts from the recordings and grouped them into categories. A second researcher reviewed these selected extracts and agreed with the categories, but did not hear the complete recordings. Most selected extracts described feeling refreshed or supported by colleagues. Several employees also said that they sometimes avoided breaks because they worried about how others would judge them.
The report concluded that employees regarded regular breaks as beneficial and that encouraging staff to take responsibility for their breaks would improve well-being. It included quotations supporting this conclusion but none about leaving colleagues with additional work. Hospital leaders proposed using the findings to develop guidance for all night-shift employees.
Discuss this study with reference to two or more of the following concepts: bias, measurement, perspective and responsibility.
[15]
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Question 9
Researchers investigated whether using shared outdoor spaces strengthened relationships between neighbours. They distributed a questionnaire to households in four apartment buildings surrounding a communal garden. The buildings contained 240 households. One adult per household was invited to respond. Paper copies and a return box were placed at the garden entrance, and the invitation was also posted in a residents' online group.
Seventy-two adults returned questionnaires. Most reported visiting the garden at least once a week. People who rarely used the garden were not contacted separately. The questionnaire was available only in the language used by the building management, although notices in the buildings regularly appeared in three languages. Responses were anonymous, and the invitation stated that participation would not affect access to shared facilities.
Participants reported how often they used the garden and rated five statements from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”. These included “I know the names of several neighbours” and “I feel that I belong in this building”. The researchers combined these responses into a neighbourhood-relationship score. Participants also answered, “How has our welcoming garden helped you connect with other residents?” There was no question specifically inviting accounts of exclusion or conflict.
Respondents who used the garden frequently had higher average neighbourhood-relationship scores than respondents who used it less often. The researchers described the frequent users as reporting stronger relationships. Several written responses mentioned meeting neighbours while gardening. Other responses described existing friends arranging to visit together. A few residents reported feeling unwelcome when established groups occupied the seating areas.
The final report emphasized comments about meeting new people and concluded that regular garden use strengthened neighbour relationships. It recommended that other apartment developments create similar spaces. The researchers did not collect information about how long residents had lived in the buildings, their working hours or their access needs. Building management funded the printing but did not see individual responses.
Discuss this study with reference to two or more of the following concepts: bias, causality, measurement and perspective.
[15]
Question 10
A class practical investigated changes in how one child completed everyday tasks independently over four weeks. The child's parent volunteered after a school invitation and gave consent, and the child agreed to be observed during the usual classroom routine. The observers watched only on days suggested by the parent as “good days” and wrote general impressions such as “much more independent”, without recording the tasks or the help received.
Explain how a naturalistic observation procedure could be conducted to investigate this aim while reducing bias.
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Question 11
Discuss how bias may affect explanations of differences in the prevalence of health problems between populations in the context of health and well-being.
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Question 12
In the context of human development, examine how bias may affect explanations of attachment.
[15]
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Question 13
One claim in the psychology of human relationships is that bias limits explanations of why relationships form. Discuss this claim.
[15]
Question 14
Researchers investigated whether drawing diagrams while studying improved learning from a written explanation. Forty adult volunteers responded to a notice at a public library advertising a study of “a promising new way to learn”. Participants were randomly allocated to two groups of twenty. All gave informed consent and were told that their performance would not be shared with library staff.
Both groups read the same explanation of how a household water filter worked. They studied individually for twenty minutes in the same quiet room. One group was instructed to draw diagrams representing the explanation. The other group was instructed to write sentences summarizing it. Both groups received identical paper, pens and time reminders. Neither could consult the explanation during the subsequent test.
Before studying began, the researcher told the diagram group that drawing was expected to produce particularly strong understanding. The summary group was told only to follow its instructions carefully. The researcher had helped develop the diagram activity and remained in the room throughout both sessions, answering questions about the instructions.
Immediately afterwards, participants completed ten questions requiring written explanations of the filter. The researcher marked the answers using a prepared scoring guide. Participant numbers appeared on the answer sheets, but the researcher could identify each person's group from a separate attendance list. Some answers were difficult to classify, and the researcher decided whether they showed sufficient understanding. There was no second marker.
The diagram group received a mean score of 8 out of 10, compared with 6 out of 10 for the summary group. The researchers described this as better immediate test performance in the diagram group. They concluded that drawing diagrams improved understanding and recommended replacing written summaries with diagrams in adult education. No later test was conducted. Participants were subsequently informed about the different instructions given to the groups and could request removal of their results.
Discuss this study with reference to two or more of the following concepts: bias, causality, measurement and responsibility.
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Question 15
Researchers investigated changes in social participation among older adults during their first three months in a retirement residence. The residence manager invited twelve newly arrived residents whom staff considered comfortable joining group activities. Nine agreed to participate. Residents received an explanation of the observations, gave written consent and could ask observers to stop recording them at any time.
Two researchers observed residents in the communal lounge during their first week and again twelve weeks later. Each observation period consisted of three afternoon sessions lasting one hour. The researchers did not observe private rooms or activities outside the residence. Participants knew which afternoons the observations would take place.
Before collecting evidence, the researchers agreed to record each occasion when a participant started a conversation with another resident and each minute spent in a group activity. They practised applying these rules to a recorded example. At each session, both researchers watched the same residents and completed separate records before comparing their decisions. They recorded similar numbers of conversation starts.
The residence had recently introduced a welcome programme. One observer had designed it and expected residents to become more socially engaged. During the first week, group activities were mainly quiet reading and individual puzzles. By the final observation period, the lounge offered daily group quizzes led by staff, who regularly invited residents to answer questions and join tables.
The researchers reported that residents started more conversations and spent longer in group activities during the final observation period. They described this as evidence that residents had become more socially confident while adapting to their new home. No residents were asked how they experienced the change. One resident who attended fewer lounge activities had begun meeting a neighbour privately, but these meetings were not recorded.
The residence requested permission to use photographs and the study's conclusion in promotional material. The researchers agreed to provide the conclusion but required separate consent before any photographs could be used.
Discuss this study with reference to two or more of the following concepts: bias, change, measurement and responsibility.
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Question 16
With reference to learning and cognition, to what extent does bias affect the reliability of one cognitive process?
[15]
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