Key Terms
The word or ideas that symbolically represent observations and experiences, e.g., sadness or work
What is a concept?
The presumed cause of the dependent variable
What is the independent variable?
The potential unintended or unavoidable effect on study outcomes
What is bias?
Randomization, control group and manipulation of an independent variable
What are the three characteristics of true-experimental design?
The stability of a research design
What is reliability?
The theoretical creations based on observations but that cannot be observed directly or indirectly, e.g. "function" or "quality of life"
What is a construct?
A phenomenon that has an effect on study variables
What is an intervening variable?
The action process of maneuvering the independent variable so that the effect of its presence, absence or degree on the dependent variable can be observed
What is manipulation?
Experiments that have treatments, outcome measures and experimental units but do not use random assignment
What is quasi-experimental design?
The extent to which a study answers the research questions and the findings reflect the underlying purpose of the study
What is validity?
A concept expressed in words
What is a conceptual definition?
A phenomenon that is the presumed effect or outcome
What is the dependent variable?
The set of action process that direct or manipulate factors to achieve an outcome
What is control?
A type of experimental that describes phenomena or relationships but cannot support claims for a causal relationship
What is a pre-experimental design?
History, testing, instrumentation, maturation, regression, mortality, interactive effects
What are the seven threats to internal validity?
A description of how a concept will be measured in a specific study
What is an operational definition?
A variable through which an independent variable works to have its effect on a dependent variable
What is a mediator?
The ways in which data are obtained in experimental-type approaches
What is instrumentation?
A type of experiment that relies on statistical manipulation of data rather than mechanical manipulation and sequencing
What is non-experimental design?
Reactivity and realism
What are the potential threats to external validity?
A testable statement that indicates what the researcher expects to find
What is a hypothesis?
An independent or predictor variable that may interact with another independent variable
What is a moderator?
To ensure that the relationships specified in the research questions can be identified, understood and ultimately predicted
What is the purpose of imposing control and restrictions on observations?
Summarize, integrate, and interpret an empirical body of research or studies in which the outcomes are quantitative
What is a meta-analysis?
The ability of the research design to answer the research question/the capacity to generalize findings and develop inferences from the sample
What is internal validity/external validity?