Essay Questions
3. How would you design a study to investigate the relationship between alcohol and reaction time? What alternative study designs would be available to you, and what would be their relative strengths and weaknesses?
Key Points:
- Consideration that psychological research involves four main methods: the experimental method, the quasi-experimental method, the survey method and the case study method.
- Consideration of ways in which these different methods could be applied to this important question, together with their strengths and weaknesses, as discussed in the chapter.
- Extra credit for a consideration of ethical and social issues as well as practical and theoretical issues.
- Additional credit for discussion of concepts and materials that are not directly presented in the chapter (for example, reflections on the mechanisms of action of alcohol, on the different techniques that one could adopt to measure reaction time, and the suitability of different methods for analysing data obtained with these various techniques).
