PS2001 Research Methods
1) You might like to analyse some sports data to test hypotheses about behaviour in sports. Below are examples that examine the validity of beliefs about when players have advantages. As you'll see, beliefs often cherished by sports commentators, are sometimes false. Data about sport is widely available on the internet - try googling.
One question you might consider: Are the outcomes of "Derby" matches (those involving teams from the same or neighbouring cities) less predictable from the teams' strength (e.g. standing in the league)?
New Scientist article describing fallacies in football
Times article describing fallacies in Tennis
Downloadable papers on Tennis
Magnus, J.R. and F.J.G.M. Klaassen (1999), “On the Advantage
of Serving First in a Tennis Set: Four Years at Wimbledon,” Statistician
(Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series D), 48, 247-256 (pdf).
Magnus, J.R. and F.J.G.M. Klaassen (1999), “The Effect of
New Balls in Tennis: Four Years at Wimbledon,” Statistician (Journal of the
Royal Statistical Society, Series D), 48, 239-246 (pdf).
Magnus, J.R. and F.J.G.M. Klaassen (1999), “The Final Set in
a Tennis Match: Four Years at Wimbledon,” Journal of Applied Statistics,
26, 461-468 (pdf).
Bruine de Bruin, W. (2005). Save the last dance for me: Unwanted serial position effects on jury evaluations. Acta Psychologica, 118, 245-260. (pdf).
Whenever competing options are considered in sequence, their evaluations may be affected by order of appearance. Such serial position effects would threaten the fairness of competitions using jury evaluations. Randomization cannot reduce potential order effects, but it does give candidates an equal chance of being assigned to preferred serial positions. Whether, or what, serial position effects emerge may depend on the cognitive demands of the judgment task. In end-of-sequence procedures, final scores are not given until all candidates have performed, possibly burdening judges’ memory. If judges’ evaluations are based on how well they remember performances, serial position effects may resemble those found with free recall. Candidates may also be evaluated step-by-step, immediately after each performance. This procedure should not burden memory, though it may produce different serial position effects. Yet, this paper reports similar serial position effects with end-of-sequence and step-by-step procedures used for the Eurovision Song Contest: Ratings increased with serial position. The linear order effect was replicated in the step-by-step judgments of World and European Figure Skating Contests. It is proposed that, independent of the evaluation procedure, judges’ initial impressions of sequentially appearing candidates may be formed step-by-step, yielding serial position effects.
Keywords: Human judgment; Judgment and decision making; Sequential effects
3) Are there personality differences in queues? Are the people who arrive very early measurably different to those who are late? Are those at the front of airport check-in queues more neurotic or anxious than those at the back? A day trip to Luton airport with some questionnaires could answer such questions.
4) Why do some people think the BBC is biased? In 2001 we reviewed the survey data on public perceptions of political bias at the BBC. With an election looming now would be an interesting time to update the analysis.
See Ayton,
P. and Tumber, H. (2001) The rise and fall of perceived bias at the BBC.
Intermedia, 29(4) 12-15, (pdf).
5) Do dogs resemble their owners? Anyone with a digital camera (the technicians can supply one) could go to a park and ask dog walkers if they could photograph them and (separately) their dogs. Then pictures of dogs could be presented with pictures of two possible owners and you could ask a panel of people to judge which person the dog most resembled. How often do people match owners and dogs? A relevant paper is here. (pdf)