Grade levels: Senior High (10-12)

Is Psychology a science? This film explains the scientific method, illustrates its application in psychology, and shows how not all questions in psychology, particularly those involving peoples’ experiences and behaviour in real world situations, can be answered this way. The final part of the film advises students on techniques for answering psychology and science questions.

In natural experiments circumstances present researchers with an opportunity to test the effect of one variable on another in ways that could not be done in a laboratory experiment. This film looks at natural experiments in psychology to illustrate how they work, their differences from other methods, and their strengths and limitations

What is the most effective time of day for students to learn new material? We begin with this research question to give practical illustrations of the strengths and possible limitations of repeated measures, independent measures and matched pairs experimental designs. We then look at three classic experimental studies in psychology, the Stroop Effect, Loftus’ eyewitness testimony experiments and Bandura’s bobo doll experiments to show why a particular experimental design was used in each case.

Some research questions in psychology involve getting out and seeing how people actually behave in real life situations. This is called naturalistic observation. Using several key studies, this film illustrates different techniques of naturalistic observation, why psychologists use this method, some of the difficulties involved, and the limitations of the method.

Self-report methods gather data directly from the participants. Here, we illustrate and compare questionnaire and interview methods, then look at some of the problems and limitations common to all self-report methods and show how they may be avoided or overcome.

This film uses the well-known case of ‘Genie’, a girl kept in solitary confinement from infancy until she was 13, to illustrate the use of case studies in psychology; why and how they are used, what they can offer researchers, their limitations and some of the ethical issues that can often arise.

Correlations are relationships and this film begins by illustrating how the strength and direction of those relationships is measured. It then uses real research studies to illustrate the uses of correlations, their limitations and how easily correlation data can be misused.

Sampling is crucial in psychology but can be difficult to understand. This film offers a helping hand with a series of visual images that take students through target population, samples, representativeness and generalisability. It then looks at how sampling is done, illustrating differences between probability and non-probability sampling, why different techniques are used and their strengths and limitations. The final part looks at how this knowledge can be used to help evaluate any study based on sampling.

Psychologists have told us a lot about human behaviour, but can we trust the findings? This film looks at the part played by reliability and validity in helping to answer this question. Reliability and external and internal validity are explained and the key tests of face, concurrent and ecological validity are illustrated with examples from major psychological studies.

Although the idea of variables can seem dull and uninspiring, they are crucial because they’re everywhere in psychology. This film provides a clear introduction to this concept, explaining and illustrating the key questions of definition, types, reliability, validity and application.