Evaluating research is very important in psychology. Evaluating is considering what is good and bad about a study. If a study has a great deal of problems then what it finds out is not very useful.

These are some points that are important to consider when evaluating research:

Sample: This is the amount of people and type of people used in the study. The people who take part in the study are known as participants. If a study only uses a certain type of participant i.e. only men, then you can not be sure that the research would get the same results with women.

Reliability + Validity: This is how well the study is carried out. Validity means; is the research measuring what it is supposed to measure? A particular type of validity is ecological validity, this means how realistic the study is. Reliability means how consistent the findings are. If you did the study again would you get the same results?

Usefulness: Are the findings useful? Can they help solve a problem or help with the treatment of a mental disorder? If a piece of research is not useful then there is no point in it being carried out.

Ethics: How the participants were treated in the study. Participants for example, should not be psychologically harmed or deceived about the nature of the study.

Example of a study....

Read through and evaluate the study below:

In this study they wanted to look at the effects of caffeine on the performance of a problem-solving task. 16 male students volunteered to take part in the study to help their university lecturer. The students were split into two groups one group had to drink 10 cups of coffee and perform the task; the other group drank no coffee and performed the task. They found that initially the people who had drunk the coffee initially performed well and solved more problems, however, they started to find it hard to concentrate and in the end did fewer tasks than the ones who drank no coffee.

Questions relating to the study...