G544 Summer 2010: Section A
Option g (the relationship between noise and performance on cognitive task.) 1. State an alternative hypothesis for your practical report.
There will be a significant correlation between noise and performance on cognitive task of students from a local sixth form when asked to complete a standard ten question cognitive test. 1) Describe the method you would use to conduct your practical report.
An advertisement will be placed in the local sixth form to ask for a group of sixth former students to take part in a short psychological study on test performance. The first 20 students to reply by either email or a hand written form will be selected and split into two groups of 10. This would produce a volunteer sample made up of students aged 16-18 with an independent groups design. One randomly allocated group will do the set of ten cognitive questions in ten minutes to a standard playlist of ‘top 40’ music. The other group will do the same set of questions within the same ten minute frame, but instead will do it in complete silence. The results of the two groups (music and non-music) will be correlated to see if there is a significant positive correlation between the relation of noise and performance on cognitive tasks. If there is a positive correlation (of? Or higher) the null hypothesis can be rejected.

2. Which inferential (non-parametric) test would you use to analyse the data? Give reasons for your choice.
The test which should be used is Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient; this is because the report collects at least ordinal data from a correlation design.

3. (a) Sketch a graph to present the data that could be collected.
(b) What could this graph tell you about the relationship between the two variables? 4. Explain one weakness of conducting this practical project as a correlation.
One weakness is that by using correlation we are unable to identify a causal relationship between noise and performance on cognitive task 2) How would you address any one ethical issue in the conduct of this project?
To make my study more ethical, I would fully de-brief the students prior to the study to inform them on what the study’s aim was. The reason I didn’t originally do this is because by telling the students the aims of the study, they may then respond to demand characteristics which would in turn effect the validity and reliability of the results gathered. 3) Outline one other way your research question could be investigated.
One other way my research question could be investigated would be using a repeated measures design. Although the students may respond to demand characteristics after repeating the same test, it would ensure that the participants are the same rather than comparing two different