Experiment Terminology

Experiment Terminology

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Ecological validity

The degree to which an investigation represents real-life experiences.

Experimenter effects

These are the ways that the experimenter can accidentally influence the participant through their appearance or behavior.

Demand characteristics

The clues in an experiment that lead the participants to think they know what the researcher is looking for (e.g. experimenter’s body language).

Independent variable (IV)

Variable the experimenter manipulates (i.e. changes) – assumed to have a direct effect on the dependent variable.

Dependent variable (DV)

Variable the experimenter measures. This is the outcome (i.e. result) of a study.

Extraneous variables (EV)

All variables, which are not the independent variable, but could affect the results (DV) of the experiment. EVs should be controlled where possible.

Confounding variables

Variable(s) that have affected the results (DV), apart from the IV. A confounding variable could be an extraneous variable that has not been controlled.

Random Allocation

Randomly allocating participants to independent variable conditions means that all participants should have an equal chance of taking part in each condition.

The principle of random allocation is to avoid bias in the way the experiment is carried out and to limit the effects of participant variables.

Order effects

Changes in participants’ performance due to their repeating the same of similar test more than once. Examples of order effects include:

(i) practice effect: an improvement in performance on a task due to repetition, for example because of familiarity of the task;

(ii) fatigue effect: a decrease in performance of a task due to repetition, for example because of boredom or tiredness.