It’s IA time again – and your group has chosen a study, and is ready to get started. Now pause and check the following:

Which theory does your chosen study relate to and how can you explain this link?

What is your aim and how is this relevant to your participants?

What is the independent variable (IV) that you’re going to manipulate to make two conditions/groups?

What is the dependent variable (DV) that you’re going to measure and how are you going to measure it?

Once you have answered all of these questions, then you’re ready to predict what you think will happen. Will the IV have a significant effect on the DV, and how? This will be your experimental hypothesis. For example:

Looks pretty good, doesn’t it? (Make sure you are clear which is the manipulated IV and which is the measured DV.)

It could also be written as ‘Participants will remember the words typed in fluorescent green significantly better than the words typed in black.’ However, you still have to operationalise the IV (How many words of how many syllables, presented how?) and the DV (How will the memory for the words be tested?)

Once you have decided this, then you’ll be ready to plan exactly how your group is going to run this experiment. Which is what we will look at in the next post. Happy planning!

For more help with planning your IA, don’t forget to visit the Psychology Sorted Youtube channel.