Unofficial exam paper for A Level Psychology Research Methods, 1st set [48 marks]

I have made a set of unofficial exam papers for the Research Methods section of the exam. This is the 1st set.

I have made a video to accompany this exam paper showing students how to ‘decode’ the stimulus.

The stimulus for this paper is an experiment testing the difference in mood between teachers who play on dance mats for 30 minutes a day for 2 weeks and those that don’t.

The exam paper tests:

• Sampling
• Limitation of a volunteer sample
• Hypothesis Direction
• Hypothesis Writing
• Pilot Study
• Control of Extraneous Variables
• Interpretation of descriptive statistics
• Justification of a Mann Whitney test
• Testing for Significance using Critical Values Tables
• Peer Review
• Limitation of Peer Review
• Type 1 Error
• Aims of a Debrief
• Design a study (12 marks) Please note that the design a study for this first set is designed to be very much like the stimulus. In the other unofficial exam papers I have written, the design a study sections are a different research method to the one in the stimulus, however, because this is the first set, this one is slightly easier in that it is asking the students to design a study similar to the original, but on students. It does have elements they will need to consider carefully, like how to ensure each participant acts as their control, which obviously has implications for the experimental design they will choose).

The mark scheme is comprehensive and should allow for peer marking. It includes a model answer for the 12 mark design a study question.

I usually use narrow margins, so if the formatting is out, try changing the margins to narrow.
If you have any questions or concerns, please get in touch via this website or through twitter: @blonde_pretzel or YouTube: Psychology Students.

Thank you for looking at my resource.