The scientific method
'I knew it all along.'
What is hindsight bias?
A descriptive technique in which an individual or a group are studied in depth
What is a case study?
A statistical measure of how strongly two variables are related
What is a correlation coefficient?
Numerical data used to measure and describe characteristics of groups
What is descriptive statistics?
An explanation using an integrated set of principles
What is a theory?
A descriptive technique of observing and recoding behavior in naturally occurring situations
What is naturalistic observation?
Perceiving a relationship where none exists
What is an illusory correlation?
A bar graph depicting a frequency distribution
What is a histogram?
A testable prediction
What is an hypothesis?
A descriptive technique for obtaining self-reported attitudes ir behaviors
What is a survey?
The tendency for extreme or unusual scores to fall back toward the average
What is regression toward the mean?
The middle score within a distribution
What is a median?
Statement of the exact methods or operations used in a research study
What is an operational definition?
A research method in which an investigator manipulates one or more variables
What is an experiment?
Two research methods that do not manipulate any variables
What are descriptive and correlational?
A representation of scores that lack symmetry around their average value
What is a skewed distribution?
A flawed sampling process
What is sampling bias?
In an experiment, the group not exposed to the treatment or manipulated variable
What is the control group?
Can identify the direction of a relationship but not establish cause-and-effect
What is the correlational research method?
A symmetrical, bell-shaped representation of a distribution of scores
What is a normal curve?
A sample that fairly represents a population because each member has an equal chance of participation
What is a random sample?
In an experiment, the factor that is manipulated
What is the independent variable (IV)?
The results of this type of study may not generalize to other contexts
What is the experimental research method?
A computed measure of how dispersed the data is in relation to the mean
What is a standard deviation?
Giving potential participants enough information to enable them to decide whether to participate in a study
What is informed consent?
IN an experiment, the outcome that is measured
What is the dependent variable?
Assigning participants to experimental and control groups by chance
What is random assignment?
Numerical data that allow one to generalize, to infer from sample data the probability that something is true of a population
What is inferential statistics?
The postexperimental explanation of a study, including its purpose and any deceptions, to participants
What is debriefing?
A factor other than the factor being studied that might influence a study's results
What is a confounding variable?
An experimental procedure in which neither the participants nor the experimenters are aware of which participants have received the treatment
What is a double-blind procedure?
How likely it is that a result occurred by chance
What is statistical significance?