Scientific Thinking
Karl Popper said a hypothesis is only scientific if it's possible to show it false. This is that property.
What is falsifiability?
This is the variable the investigator deliberately changes.
What is the independent variable?
This is the middle value in an ordered data set.
What is the median?
In this process, independent experts evaluate a manuscript before it is published.
What is peer review?
This dated record of notes, data and decisions is kept throughout an investigation. What is a logbook?
What is a logbook?
This is reasoning from specific observations to a general conclusion.
What is inductive reasoning?
A control group receives an inactive treatment so researchers can account for this type of substance.
What is a placebo?
This statistic describes how spread out the data are around the mean.
What is standard deviation?
Participants must be given this before agreeing to take part in a study, including the risks and their right to withdraw.
What is informed consent?
This short summary at the start of a research report outlines the aim, method, key results and conclusion.
What is an abstract?
Thomas Kuhn used this term for a fundamental shift in a discipline's accepted concepts and practices, such as moving from a geocentric to a heliocentric universe.
What is a paradigm shift?
In this type of trial, neither the participants nor the researchers know who is receiving the treatment.
What is a double-blind trial?
If the p-value is below the chosen significance level (commonly 0.05), you do this to the null hypothesis.
What is reject it?
resenting someone else's work or ideas as your own, without acknowledging the source, is called this. What is plagiarism?
What is plagiarism?
A small sample size, or a variable that couldn't be controlled, would be discussed here.
What are limitations?
Kuhn called the routine work of testing and refining ideas within an accepted framework this.
What is normal science?
An investigation that measures what it claims to measure, with other variables controlled, is high in this.
What is validity?
This is a data point that lies well outside the pattern of the rest of the data.
What is an outlier?
In animal research, the 3Rs are Replacement, Refinement and this.
What is Reduction?
Reviewing existing published research to find a gap your investigation could address is called this.
What is a literature review?
In science, this term means a well-tested explanation supported by a large body of evidence, not just a guess.
What is a scientific theory?
Repeated measurements that cluster tightly together, even if they are all far from the true value, show high this.
What is precision?
A correlation coefficient of r = -0.95 describes this kind of relationship between two variables. What is a strong negative correlation?
What is a strong negative correlation?
A scientist is paid by a drug company to test that company's new medicine. Having a personal or financial interest that could bias the research is called this.
What is a conflict of interest?
This section of a report interprets the results, links them back to the hypothesis and evaluates the method.
What is the discussion?