Parts of an Experiment
This variable is manipulated by researchers in an experiment, does not depend on any other variables, and is placed on the x-axis when graphed.
What is independent variable?
A scientific approach generally includes systematic empiricism, empirical questions, and public knowledge. These three things are known as the ____.
What are key features of science?
A group of researchers are going door to door and handing out a form with questions about how people feel about a new park being constructed in their town. The researchers use the results of this questionnaire for their knowledge base before beginning experimentation. Interviews performed in this fashion are as ____.
What are surveys?
The entire group of individuals that share one or more characteristics that are of interest to a researcher is referred to as the ______.
What is a population?
A group of researchers decides to perform an experiment to determine if getting more sleep results in a more productive workday, specifically, if it increases the time employees spend active on their work computer. In the experiment, groups are directed to sleep for a certain amount of time for a period of one week. The amount of time all of the groups spent actively working on their computers is noted. In this experiment, the amount of time that the workers spend active on their computers is known at the ______.
What is dependent variable?
Proponents of the flat earth hypothesis decide to try to support their theory with evidence. This evidence consists of the testimony of other flat earthers, poorly executed experimentation, and surveys of people in the flat earth community. This justification for the flat earth hypothesis consists of all of the _____.
What are key features of pseudoscience?
Randomly choosing participants for an experiment and the groups within said experiment, which results in everyone in the study having an equal chance of being selected, is called _____.
What is a simple random sample?
A _____ is a subset of individuals or instances selected from a larger population for the purpose of research.
What is a sample?
In studies that are conducted in summer, the fact that it is warm outside may change the outcome even though the weather isn't a part of experimentation. Injury rates on boats and ice cream sales are both higher in the summertime, and that is specifically because of the warm weather. If a researcher is trying to study whether ice cream or hot chocolate sells better in a certain area, performing the study in the summer will produce a third variable that will affect the results. This variable is known as the ____.
What is confounding variable?
In an experiment, researchers divide the population into distinct subgroups based on age, and participants are then randomly drawn from the subgroups. These participants are used in the experiment that the researchers are preparing. The final group is known as ____.
What is a stratified random sample?
When one variable changes, another variable usually changes in a predictable way, but this does not mean that one variable causes the other variable to change. This relationship is called _____.
What is correlation?
A group of researchers are trying to test out how a sleeping medication will help a group’s sleep quality. They give an experimental group one brand of sleeping medication and a second group a different brand of medication. To create a control group, they provide the third group with a placebo pill. The researchers gather data to determine the effectiveness of the two sleeping medications when compared with the control group and with each other. Setups like this are known as ____.
What are experimental studies?
____ is when one variable directly causes a change in another variable, specifically, a change in the independent variable leads to a change in the dependent variable. Three conditions must be met. There must be covariation, meaning a relationship is observed between the variables, there must be a time-order relationship, meaning the “cause” must precede the “effect,” and there must be an elimination of possible alternative causes, meaning a randomized control trial or quasi-experiment is performed to account for any confounding variables.
What is causation?
A group of researchers wanted to compare how adderall affects students' GPA. They went to three different schools, one Middle school, one elementary school, and one high school. They took two students from each school to do the study. They gave the middle school students 50 mg of adderall and the high school students 100 mg of adderall. The elementary school students were our control group and didn't get any. This is an example of _____.
What are quasi-experimental design studies?