Key Idea: Bias is an honest tilt that pulls research away from the truth. It can come from the design, the researcher, the participants, or from whose culture and gender the study was built around.
Where bias comes from
- The design: sampling bias, leading questions
- The researcher: expectations, confirmation bias
- The participants: guessing the aim, looking good
Cultural bias
- One culture judged by another's standards
- Imposed etic: one culture's measure used on all
- WEIRD samples treated as everyone
Gender bias
- Alpha bias: differences exaggerated
- Beta bias: differences ignored
- Androcentrism: male as the norm
Reducing bias
- Before: a pilot, random sampling and allocation
- During: single-blind and double-blind
- After: a second researcher, replication
The words to know
| Word | What it means |
|---|---|
| Bias | An honest tilt that pulls research away from the truth |
| Demand characteristics | Clues that let participants guess the aim and act to fit it |
| Social desirability | Giving the answer that makes you look good |
| Publication bias | Mostly positive results get published |
| Ethnocentrism | Treating your own culture as the normal one |
| Imposed etic | One culture's measure used on another as if it were neutral |
| Androcentrism | Treating male behaviour as the standard for everyone |
| Double-blind | Neither the participants nor the tester know who is in which group |
| Reflexivity | A researcher examining how her own views may shape the study |
Name the bias. Point to where it got in. Say what it does to the finding, and what would reduce it.
Exam-style question
Your class practical was an experiment. Your class tested whether people remember more words when music is playing. The twelve participants were friends of the class, all aged 16, and ten of them were girls. They were told beforehand that the class expected music to help. The student who read out the words also marked the recall sheets. Explain the concept of bias in relation to the experiment in your class practical.
Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
Important: That sentence says too little to score. Say which bias, where it entered, and what it changed.
Tap each card to check yourself.
Only keen volunteers take part. Which bias? Sampling bias: they do not represent the wider group.
Participants guess the aim and act to fit it. What is this called? Demand characteristics, a form of participant bias.
A test written in one country is used unchanged in another. What is this? An imposed etic, a form of cultural bias.
A medicine is tested only on men and given to everyone. Which bias? Beta bias: a possible difference is ignored.
Which fix fits researcher bias? A double-blind design, or a second researcher.
What does pre-registration reduce? Publication bias.
Exam tips
- Name the type of bias, never just "bias".
- Use a detail from the study or the practical in every point.
- Bias can work in either direction, against any group.
- Pair each fix with the bias it targets.