Research Methods
A researcher sends a questionnaire to 500 students asking how many hours they sleep each night. What research method is being used?
Survey
In an experiment, the variable that the researcher deliberately changes is called the ________ variable.
Independent variable
In the data set:
2, 4, 4, 6, 8, 4, 10, 2
What is the mode?
4
After seeing the results of an election, someone says, "I knew that person was going to win the whole time."
Hindsight bias
True or False:
Psychological research should follow ethical principles designed to protect research participants.
True
A psychologist quietly watches children playing at a park and records how often they share toys without interfering with them. What research method is this?
Naturalistic observation
__ variable.
Dependent variable
Using the same data set:
2, 4, 4, 6, 8, 4, 10, 2
What is the median?
4
Despite repeatedly getting low grades, a student confidently predicts that they will definitely get an A on the next test without changing how they study.
Overconfidence
A researcher wants to study people's reactions to an embarrassing situation. Before participating, students are given information about the study and agree to participate.
What ethical principle is being demonstrated?
Informed consent
A psychologist spends several years studying one individual who developed severe memory problems after an accident. What research method is being used?
Case study
Researchers want to determine whether sleep affects memory. One group gets 8 hours of sleep and another gets 4 hours. Students then take the same memory test.
Identify the IV and DV.
What does a positive correlation mean?
As one variable increases, the other variable tends to increase as well.
A student believes that social media causes anxiety. They only look at studies supporting their belief and ignore studies that disagree.
Confirmation bias
A researcher tells participants that they are studying memory when the real purpose involves studying conformity. Participants are later told the true purpose of the study.
What ethical issue is being addressed through the explanation afterward?
Debriefing
Researchers want to determine whether classical music causes students to perform better on a memory test. They randomly assign students to listen to classical music or study in silence before taking the same test. What research method should they use?
Experiment
A psychologist wants to test whether caffeine improves reaction time. Students who receive caffeine also happen to be the students who slept the most the night before. Why is this a problem?
Sleep is a confounding variable because it could affect reaction time and make it difficult to determine whether caffeine caused the difference.
A study finds a Pearson's r = +0.78 between hours spent studying and psychology exam scores. Is this relationship positive or negative, and is it weak, moderate, or strong?
Positive and strong.
A researcher strongly believes that a particular treatment works. When analyzing the results, they pay more attention to evidence supporting the treatment and dismiss evidence that does not.
What bias could interfere with the researcher's conclusions?
Confirmation bias
A researcher collects information about participants' psychological experiences and publishes the participants' names alongside the results.
Why is this ethically problematic?
It violates participants' privacy/confidentiality.
A researcher wants to study whether teenagers procrastinate more when they are stressed. She observes students, interviews them about their stress levels, and records how often they procrastinate, but she does not manipulate anything. Can she conclude that stress causes procrastination? Explain.
No. This is correlational/observational research. Without manipulating a variable in an experiment, she cannot establish cause and effect.
A researcher wants to test whether studying with music improves exam performance. She lets students choose whether they want to study with music or in silence. Why is this design weaker than randomly assigning students to the two groups?
Students who choose their own group may already differ in important ways. This creates potential selection bias/confounding variables, making it harder to determine whether music caused differences in performance.
A researcher finds r = -0.85 between hours spent playing video games and hours spent studying.
Which statement is best?
a. Video games cause students to study less.
B. Students who play more video games tend to study less.
C. Students who study more tend to play more video games.
D. There is no relationship.
b
After a study is completed, a researcher says, "The results make perfect sense. We should have known this would happen." What cognitive bias is being demonstrated, and why could this bias be problematic when evaluating research?
Hindsight bias. It can make an outcome seem more predictable than it actually was and can cause people to underestimate uncertainty or the difficulty of making predictions beforehand.
A researcher proposes an experiment that could provide valuable information but would expose participants to significant psychological harm. The researcher argues that the knowledge gained would be "worth it."
Should the researcher automatically conduct the study? Explain why or why not.
No. The potential scientific benefits do not automatically justify significant harm to participants. Ethical principles require researchers to protect participants and minimize potential harm.