Experiment Terms
Statistics Terms
Problems and Solutions in Research
Some Section One Vocab
Fill in the Blank
100
This is an educated guess about the relationship between two variables. Hint: This word was in a previous chapter.
What is a hypothesis?
100
This is a graph of frequency distribution that is shaped like a bell (or a parabola if you're a math person).
What is a normal curve?
100
This is a change in a person's illness or behavior that results from a belief that the treatment will have an effect, rather than the actual treatment. For example, a person receives a sugar pill rather than a painkiller, but since they believe it's a painkiller, their pain goes away.
What is the placebo effect?
100
It's a research method in which information is obtained by asking many individuals a fixed set of questions. You have probably done this online.
What is a survey?
100
This is the measure of a relationship between two variables or sets of data. There is positive ______ and negative ______.
What is correlation?
200
A small group of participants out of the total number available, that a researcher studies.
What is a sample?
200
This is a number that describes something about the "average" score of a distribution. It's one of the most common ways of summarizing sets of data.
What is central tendency?
200
This is an experiment in which the participants are unaware of which participants received the treatment.
What is a single blind experiment?
200
This is a research method in which the psychologist observes the subject in a natural setting without interfering.
What is naturalistic observation?
200
It's a branch of math concerned with summarizing and making meaningful inferences from collections of data. Section 2 is all about ______.
What is statistics?
300
This is any factor that is capable of change and comes in two types--independent and dependent.
What is a variable
300
It's a measure of difference.
What is variance?
300
This is an experiment in which neither the experimenter nor the participants know which participants received which treatment. This technique helps the researcher to remain unbiased.
What is a double blind experiment?
300
It's an intensive study of a person or group.
What is a case study?
300
This describes the direction and strength of the relationship between two sets of observations. The most common measurement is the Pearson _______ or (r)
What is a correlation coefficient?
400
This is the group to which an independent variable is applied. If you were doing an experiment to test a new painkiller, you would give the new painkiller to this group.
What is the experimental group?
400
This is the listing and summarizing of data in a practical and efficient way.
What is descriptive statistics?
400
This occurs when the researcher's expectations influence their behavior and thus influence the participant's behavior. Generally, this is something to avoid in an experiment.
What is a self-fulfilling prophecy?
400
In this research method, data is collected about a group of participants over a number of years to assess how certain characteristics change or remain the same during development. Though this type of method is time consuming and precarious, it's a good way to examine consistencies and inconsistencies in behavior.
What is a longitudinal study?
400
This is a measure of variability that describes an average distance of every score from the mean. _______ is a better measure of variance because it uses all of the data points.
What is standard deviation?
500
This is the group that is treated exactly like the experimental group except they don't get the independent variable.
What is the control group?
500
These are numerical methods used to determine whether research data support a hypothesis or whether results were due to chance.
What are inferential statistics?
500
This is a research method used to study differences depending on age.
What is a cross-sectional study?
500
It's an arrangement of data that indicates how often a particular score or observation occurs. Using the information from ______, you can figure out percentages.
What is frequency distribution?
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