Research & The Scientific Method
This is systematic investigation and study in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions.
What is research?
This informs potential participants about what a study will entail and allows them to opt in or opt out.
What is informed consent?
This is a variable a researcher measures but does not manipulate
What is a dependent variable?
A study whose findings generalize well to a real-world setting has strong validity of this type.
What is external validity?
This section of a research paper reviews patterns, trends, and gaps in our current knowledge base based on what previous researchers have already found out
What is a literature review?
It is a way of knowing that relies on "gut feelings" and common sense
What is intuiton?
This set of ethical principles, established in 1947, includes the strictures that researchers avoid unnecessary harm and ensure that the benefits of a study outweigh the risks
What is the Nuremberg Code?
These are the four kinds of scales of measurement for dependent variables (hint: Is the data categorical? Is it ordered? Is it evenly spaced? Does it have a true zero?)
What are nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio?
This type of study design lacks random assignment, as the researcher does not manipulate the independent variable
What is a quasi-experimental design?
This section of your paper is where you are most likely to tell your reader about your operational definitions
What is the method section?
This is research that aims to understand fundamental processes of behaviors; it focuses more on expanding our knowledge base and less on practical applications
What is basic research?
This infamous study, planned for 2 weeks, was terminated after 6 days due to the psychological distress it caused participants
What is the Stanford Prison Experiment?
This defines how a researcher measures a construct for their study
What is an operational definition?
This kind of subject loss occurs when a participants fails to complete an experiment due to equipment failure.
What is mechanical subject loss?
This is limited to 250 words and appears directly after your title page
What is an abstract?
It is the assumption that the simplest explanation for a phenomenon is likely the correct one
What is parsimony?
This historic study's ethical violations included deceiving participants, causing distress, and pressuring participants not to withdraw
What is the Milgram study?
Temperature in Celsius, time of day, and SAT scores--all of which lack a true zero--are examples of data measured on this kind of scale
What is an interval scale?
This common study design reduces the risk of carry-over effects (e.g., fatigue) because each participant is tested only once
What is a between-subjects design?
This is a kind of hypothesis that predicts how the dependent variable will be impacted by the independent variable
What is a directional hypothesis?
This aspect of the scientific method makes it difficult to know things about phenomena that cannot be observably tested
What is testability?
This aspect of the Belmont Report includes the principles that participants must be selected fairly and that all participants must receive benefits from research
What is justice?
History, maturation, and regression to the mean threaten what kind of validity?
What is internal validity?
This strategy strengthens the internal validity of within-subjects designs by having different participants experience experimental conditions in a different order
What is counter-balancing?
This component of an APA journal reference--likely the longest individual component the reference will have-- is non-italicized, followed by a period, and (surprisingly!) written in sentence case
What is the article title?