Research Methods & Ethics
Observing behaviors in a real world setting without anything being staged.
What is Naturalistic Observation?
A person who seeks out information to support their own beliefs and ignores all opposing information is considered which bias?
What is Confirmation Bias?
The most frequently occurring number in a data set.
What is Mode?
A testable prediction, often implied by a theory.
What is a hypothesis?
Identify the independent variable in this situation: A researcher wants to study the effects of caffeine on memory, where one group drinks coffee and the other drinks decaf. What is the independent variable?
What is... the caffeine?
Protection from harm, institutional review, informed consent/assent, confidentiality, deception, and proper debrief.
What is Ethical Guidelines?
The "I-knew-it-all-along" phenomenon
What is Hindsight Bias?
What are the three measures of central tendency?
What is Mean, Median, and Mode?
Explains behaviors or events by offering ideas that organize observations.
What is a theory?
Which of these graphs has a positive correlation? #1 or #2?
What is... #2?
Description of procedures, actions, and/or processes in a study.
What is operational definition?
A person believes they received an A on their exam, only to find out that they got a C. What bias is this?
What is the Overconfidence Bias?
Distribution displaying too many low scores/values
What is Skewed Right Distribution/Positive Skew?
The possibility that an idea, hypothesis, or theory can be disproven by observation or experiment.
What is falsifiability?
Dr. May is doing a study. He exposes mice to UV rays to test its effects on energy levels. He does this research in secret because he wants the credit. Which following aspect of the research design poses the highest ethical concern?
a) It is unacceptable to expose animals to harm during research.
b) The mice will be unable to give their informed consent.
c) The data will not be kept confidential.
d) The institutional review process was not completed before the start of the study.
What is... D! The institutional review process was not completed before the start of the study.
What is reducing bias?
A researcher conducts an experiment. However, their expectations influences their study, leading to skewed results.
What is Experimenter/Observer-Expectancy Bias?
Measures average distance from the mean. Following 68-95-99 Rule, 95% of data falls within +/- 2
What is Standard Deviation (SD)?
Others may replicate the original observations with different participants, materials, and circumstances.
Why must an operational definition be reported?
Identify the mode and mean of this data set:
13, 17, 13, 14, 18, 13, 17
Mode ; Mean
13 ; 15
Design to compare groups at one point in time vs. a design to follow one group/individual over a long period of time.
What is a cross-sectional and longitudinal design?
Participants in a study alter their responses to align with what they believe the researcher is looking for.
What is Participant Bias?
Researchers use this to determine statistical significance and reliability vs Researchers use this to summarize data
What is the difference between Inferential and Descriptive Statistics?
Every person in the entire population has an equal chance of being included in the sample group.
What is random sampling?
In a negatively skewed distribution, which of the following is true?
a) the median is higher than the mean
b) the mean is higher than the median
c) the mean, the median, and the mode are the same
d) the distribution is bimodal
What is... A! The median is higher than the mean