Ways of Knowing
Accepting a scientific claim as supported because a respected expert or source said so this is acceptance of
What is authority?
A research question earns this label when its answer is in doubt and it fills a gap in the literature.
What is interesting?
The property a hypothesis has when evidence could show it to be wrong.
What is falsifiability?
The variable the experimenter manipulates.
What is the independent variable?
A set of principles and practices that provide moral guidance for research.
What are ethics?
The committee that must include at least five people with varying backgrounds.
What is an Institutional Review Board?
Students who drink more coffee earn higher grades, so coffee improves grades."
What is treating a correlation as causation? A third variable, such as hours studied, could drive both.
Believing something because it simply feels right, with no evidence behind it.
What is intuition?
Enough time, resources, skills, and access to participants. This is the second criterion.
What is feasibility?
A quantity or quality that varies across people or situations.
What is a variable?
The variable measured as the outcome of the study.
What is the dependent variable?
Agreeing to take part after being told the information relevant to that decision.
What is informed consent?
Plain language, room for questions, and a reminder of the right to withdraw at any time with no negative consequences.
What is a sound informed consent procedure?
What is treating a correlation as causation? A third variable, such as hours studied, could drive both.
What is a hypothesis that is not falsifiable? No possible evidence could show it wrong, so it cannot be tested.
The way of knowing that leans on logic and reasoning rather than on observation.
What is rationalism?
A broad explanation of a phenomenon.
What is a theory?
What turns an abstract construct such as anxiety into something measurable and observable.
What is an operational definition?
A variable that rides along with the independent variable and offers a rival explanation for the results.
What is a confound?
Never collecting identifying information in the first place.
What is anonymity?
Not revealing the full purpose or design of a study counts as this, even with no false statement.
What is deception?
"We measured motivation in all 80 participants." That is the entire description.
What is a missing operational definition? Nothing says how motivation was measured, so no one can replicate it.
Structured, planned observation carried out under controlled conditions.
What is systematic empiricism?
A specific prediction that follows from a theory.
What is a hypothesis?
A sample has to be this before findings can generalize to the population.
What is representative?
This number reports both the strength and the direction of a relationship between two variables.
What is a correlation coefficient?
Maximizing possible benefits while minimizing possible harms.
What is beneficence?
Correcting misconceptions and reducing harm as soon as participation ends.
What is debriefing?
"The treatment group was tested Monday at 8 a.m. The control group was tested Friday at 4 p.m."
What is a confound? Time of day varies systematically with condition.
Systematic empiricism plus rational reasoning. It is also why psychology counts as a science because of its use.
What is the scientific method?
Derive a prediction from a theory, test it, then revise the theory. Name that cycle.
What is the hypothetico-deductive method?
Recruiting whoever happens to be nearby and willing, at the cost of representativeness.
What is convenience sampling?
What you have when one variable goes up as the other goes down.
What is a negative correlation?
From 1932 to 1972, treatment was withheld from poor African American men in Alabama.
What is the Tuskegee syphilis study?
Weigh risks and benefits, seek feedback, take responsibility. Name the three groups those obligations reach.
What are research participants, science, and society?
"Participants were told the study was about memory. It was about stress. They were thanked and sent home."
What is deception without debriefing? Deception requires debriefing as soon as participation ends.