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The Research Process » Setting Aims and Designing a Procedure

What you'll learn this session

Study time: 30 minutes

Cambridge spec: 7.8.1

What an aim is and how to write a clear one
How to design a procedure: conditions, setting, controls and a stooge
How to choose materials: stimuli, tests or tasks, behavioural categories and questions
How to plan a simple study for an exam question

The research process is examined in Section D of both papers. It is the story of how a study is planned and carried out. This lesson covers the first two steps: setting an aim and designing a procedure. The next lesson, Briefing, Collecting and Analysing Data, covers the rest.

Key terms:

Aim: the purpose of the research. It says what the researcher wants to find out.
Procedure: the step-by-step plan for how the research will be carried out.
Stooge (confederate): a person in the research who is playing a role, without the participants' knowledge.
Materials: everything the researcher uses in the study, such as stimuli, tests or tasks, behavioural categories and questions.
Stimulus (plural: stimuli): something shown or given to participants to get a response, such as a picture or a list of words.

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Step 1: Setting an aim

Every study starts with an aim, the purpose of the research. A good aim is short and says exactly what is being investigated. It often starts with "To investigate whether..." or "To find out if...".

✅ A clear aim

"To investigate whether a five-minute stretch break improves how accurately teenagers sort cards." It names who, what is changed and what is measured.

❌ A vague aim

"To find out about stretching." Nobody knows what will be done or measured, so a procedure cannot be planned from it.

The aim matters because everything else follows from it. The method, the procedure and the materials are all chosen to answer the aim. Experiments, observations, questionnaires, interviews and case studies are all planned this way. Each one is explained in its own lesson.

Step 2: Designing a procedure

The procedure is the step-by-step plan. Someone else should be able to read it and repeat the study in exactly the same way. When designing it, the researcher decides on the conditions or setting, the controls, whether to use a stooge, and the materials.

Organising experimental conditions

In an experiment, the researcher decides what the conditions are and how participants are placed in them. For the stretch break aim, one condition could be a five-minute stretch break before sorting cards, and the other could be five minutes of sitting still. The researcher also decides the order of the steps, how long each takes and what the participants must do. How to choose between experimental designs is covered in Experimental Design and Repeated Measures and Independent Measures and Random Allocation.

The observational setting

In an observation, the researcher must decide where and when to watch, and who or what to watch. This is the observational setting. A researcher might choose a bike rack at a college, between 8 am and 9 am, for five weekdays in a row. They also decide where the observers stand so they can see clearly without getting in the way.

Controls

A procedure must include controls, so that other variables do not affect the results. For the stretch break study, the researcher could use the same room, the same time of day and the same instructions for everyone. The idea of controls is explained in Extraneous Variables and Controls. Here, the key point is that controls are planned in the procedure, before any data are collected.

Using a stooge (confederate)

Sometimes a researcher needs a particular event to happen, and waiting for it to happen naturally could take far too long. A stooge, also called a confederate, is a person who plays a role in the research without the participants knowing.

Worked example

A researcher wants to know if students hand in lost property. Waiting for people to lose things would take months. Instead, a stooge walks along a school corridor and "accidentally" drops a glove. The researcher counts how many students hand it in or pick it up. The students do not know the stooge is part of the research.

A stooge makes the situation the same each time, which makes the results easier to compare. The downside is that it involves deception. Deception is covered in Consent, Deception and Debriefing.

Choosing materials

The materials are everything used in the study. The spec lists four kinds.

📷 Stimuli

Things shown or given to participants, such as photographs of faces or a list of words to learn.

📝 Tests or tasks

What participants do, such as sorting cards or a recall test. The task must match what the aim measures.

📋 Behavioural categories

For an observation, the list of behaviours the observers will record, such as "locks bike" and "leaves bike unlocked". They must be clear and observable. See Structured and Unstructured Observations and Operationalising Behavioural Categories.

❓ Questions

For a questionnaire or interview, the questions that will be asked. They should be clear and fit the aim. See Questionnaires and Interviews.

A tip: check that every material links back to the aim. If an item does not help to answer the aim, leave it out.

Putting it together: planning a study

Worked example

Aim: To investigate whether looking at pictures helps teenagers remember a list of 12 new French words better than reading the words alone.

Conditions: Condition 1 gets the words with pictures. Condition 2 gets the words only.

Materials: two printed lists of 12 words (stimuli), and a recall test where participants write down as many words as they can (task).

Controls: both groups get one minute to study the list, in the same room, with the same spoken instructions.

Stooge: not needed here, because nothing has to be staged.

Common mistakes

Writing a vague aim. Say who is studied, what is changed or observed, and what is measured.
Thinking a stooge is a participant. A stooge works with the researcher, but the real participants do not know.
Writing "materials" and listing only one thing. Name the actual stimuli, task, categories or questions from the scenario.
Mixing up the aim and the procedure. The aim says why. The procedure says how.
Saying a stooge is always unethical. It involves deception, so explain the problem, not just call it wrong.

Exam-style question

A researcher wants to find out whether people are more likely to give money to a charity collector if another person has already given. A collector stands outside a station for two hours. A man pretends to be a passer-by and puts a coin in the tin each time a group of people is walking past. The researcher counts how many people in the group also give.

(a) Identify the stooge in this study. [1 mark]

(b) Write a suitable aim for the study. [2 marks]

Model answer

(a) The man who pretends to be a passer-by and puts a coin in the tin (1).

(b) To investigate whether people are more likely to give money to a charity collector (1) when they have seen another person give first (1).

(c) "Gives money" (1), which is when a person puts a coin or note in the tin (1). Another correct example is "walks past without giving".

Exam tip

For an aim, use "To investigate whether..." and include both what is changed and what is measured.

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