Non-Experimental Research I
This type of non-experimental research measures two variables and assesses the statistical relationship between them in a non-manipulated environment without random assignment.
What is correlational research?
The acronym BRUSO outlines these five criteria for writing effective survey items.
What are Brief, Relevant, Unambiguous, Specific, and Objective?
Unlike naturalistic observation, archival data, and survey research, these two data collection methods are used in qualitative research rather than correlational research.
What are interviews and focus groups?
Acronym highlighting a threat to external validity, noting that most psychology participants are Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic.
What are W.E.I.R.D. participants?
Type of research design that includes manipulation of independent variable and random assignment to conditions.
What is true-experimental research?
A research design that resembles an experiment because the independent variable is manipulated, but lacks random assignment of participants.
What is quasi-experimental research?
Created in the 1930s by Rensis Likert, this specific rating scale measures attitudes by presenting statements with a 5-point agreement scale that is summed across items.
What is a Likert scale?
This pretest-posttest threat occurs when a psychological or medical condition naturally improves over time without any treatment intervention.
What is spontaneous remission?
The extent to which an experimental design supports the conclusion that differences in the independent variable directly caused observed changes in the dependent variable.
What is internal validity?
In an experiment to [BLANK] a variable means to vary its level systematically.
What is manipulate/manipulation?
In a pretest-posttest study, this alternative explanation refers to extraneous developmental changes that participants naturally experience over time.
What is maturation?
Two core features of survey research.
What are self-report measures and large random samples?
Unlike simple random, stratified, and cluster sampling, these two techniques are classified as nonprobability sampling.
What are convenience sampling and snowball sampling?
An experimental design format where each participant is tested under all experimental conditions.
What is a within-subjects experiment?
Holding extraneous variables constant across conditions in an experiment is referred to as this.
What is control?
An approach to data collection where behavior is observed in the natural environment where it typically occurs, requiring public settings and participant anonymity for ethical compliance.
What is naturalistic observation?
A comprehensive list of all members of a target population from which an actual survey sample is selected.
What is a sampling frame?
In mixed-methods research, this strategy combines multiple quantitative and qualitative techniques to study a single topic so findings converge on one interpretation
What is triangulation?
The solution used in within-subjects designs to control for carryover effects (such as fatigue or practice) by systematically varying condition order across participants.
What is counterbalancing?
In a within-subjects study with multiple conditions, a drop in participant concentration or performance due to boredom or exhaustion is known as this specific carryover effect.
What is a fatigue effect?
This threat to pretest-posttest validity is the statistical phenomenon where individuals who score extremely on a first measurement tend to score less extremely on the next occasion.
What is regression to the mean?
The 1936 Literary Digest presidential election poll famously failed due to this problem, which occurs when a sample systematically fails to represent the population.
What is sampling bias?
Ordered from lowest to highest internal validity, this is the exact ranking of the three primary quantitative research designs
What is Correlational research (lowest), Quasi-Experimental research (middle), and True-Experimental research (highest)?
The two defining features of a true experiment that allow researchers to isolate cause-and-effect relationships
What are the manipulation of the independent variable and the control of extraneous variables (via random assignment)?
This specific placement method ensures that participants in a between-subjects experiment have an equal chance of being assigned to any treatment condition, making groups equivalent on average.
What is random assignment?