Research Methods 1
This is a testable prediction, often prompted by a theory, to enable us to accept, reject, or revise the theory
What is a hypothesis
This descriptive method records behavior in a natural environment
What is naturalistic observation
This is the difference between the highest and lowest scores in a distribution.
What is range
This is the computed measure of how much scores vary around the mean score.
What is standard deviation
Thus is a statement of the procedures used to define research variables.
What are operational definitions
This is an observation technique in which one person is studied in depth in the hope of revealing universal principles AND a drawback to this technique
What is a case study and what is may not be representative or generalized of the larger population
This is the difference between correlation and experiments.
What is correlation does NOT imply causation.
This is the % of scores that fall within one standard deviation of the mean in a normal curve.
What is 68%
This is the tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that one would have foreseen it.
What is hindsight bias?
This is a method that ascertains self-reported attitudes or behaviors of a particular group and these are 2 examples of potential drawbacks to using this method.
What is survey method - wording effects - sampling bais
These are the methods researchers take to control for the placebo effect
What are, use a control group that is given a placebo and experimental group given the actual drug to demonstrate difference in results for 2 groups.
This is the mean, median and mode of the following list of numbers: 2,3,3,3,3,3,4
What is mean:3 median:3 mode: 3
This is the criteria for a scientific categorization of statistically significant for most psychologists
What is : the odds of a result occurring by chance is less than 5% or p=< .05
A draw back of a naturalistic observation.
What is it describes behavior but does not explain behavior.
This is the relationship between population, random sample AND random assignment
What is - group being studies - random selection of participants in study - random assignment to experimental vs control group
This is the process and usefulness of the double-blind procedure
What is to eliminate experimenter AND participant bias by not revealing the true purpose of a study to participants OR the one conducting the experiment so they don't expect things to happen a certain way and behave accordingly.
This is the problem of having a skewed distribution
What is the mean or average may not reflect a true average since really high or low numbers would skew the mean.
These are 4 main ethics of research
What is
1. Do no harm
2. Informed consent
3. debrief after experiment
4. Confidentiality
These are the 4 basic steps of the research process
What is: 1. Theory 2. Hypothesis 3. Research and Observations 4. Confirm, Revise, or Reject hypothesis
A research must include this in their design to control for the confounding variable of individual differences among participants.
What is random assignment.
Type of variables which an experimenter has not controlled for an can skew the results.
What is confounding variables.
This is an example of a case where median would be the best measure of central tendency and why
What is an outlier in a set of data such as average home prices in St Pete and including the price of a mansion on Park Street.
A researcher wants to test the effects of caffeine on memory recall of definitions of psychology terms. What is the IV, the DV, and a possible OD?
What is caffeine, what is memory recall, and what is the number of words recalled accurately or could be the speed in which the participants could recall meanings of terms.