Practice Exam 2

Which of the following is an association claim?

"Being visited by dogs in the hospital causes decreases in recovery time."

Which of the following phrases might a person encounter in a popular media article that indicates an interaction?

"Mixed factorial design"

Dr. Gavin is conducting a 2 × 4 independent-groups factorial design. How many interactions will Dr. Gavin need to examine?

1

Dr. Gavin is conducting a 2 × 4 independent-groups factorial design. How many independent variables are in his study?

2

Dr. Gavin is conducting a 2 × 4 independent-groups factorial design. Assuming he wants 25 people in each cell, how many participants does Dr. Gavin need to recruit?

250

Dr. Gavin is conducting a 2 × 4 independent-groups factorial design. How many main effects will Dr. Gavin need to examine?

4

Which of the following cannot be found in a one-group, pretest/posttest design?

A comparison group

is used to control order effects in an experiment.

A design confound

In previous studies, Dr. Schulenberg has established that finding meaning in one's everyday work activities can lead to greater success in the workplace (e.g., productivity, creativity). He is curious as to whether this can happen in the college classroom. Specifically, he is curious whether finding meaning in one's classroom experience can lead to greater academic performance. In the spring semester, he has his teaching assistant randomly assign half the class to write a paragraph each class period about how the material has meaning for their lives (meaning group). The other half writes a paragraph about what they did to prepare for class (preparation group). He does not know which of his students are writing which paragraph, and the students are not aware they are responding to different writing assignments. To measure academic performance, he gives the students a midterm essay exam and a final exam. The study described above is an example of which of the following?

A double-blind study

Dr. Morimoto is curious as to whether exposing people to violent video games causes them to be more aggressive. He assigns half his participants to play a video game for 5 minutes and the other half to play for 7 minutes. He finds that there is no relationship between playing the game longer and being more aggressive. What might be to blame for this null effect?

A weak manipulation

In the case of a factorial design, another term for independent variable is:

Cell

Dr. Alfonse, a developmental psychologist, conducts a study to determine whether children prefer books with drawn illustrations or with photographs. A group of 30 preschoolers are shown two copies of a book (Ferdinand the Bull) at the same time. Although the story is the same, one book is illustrated with drawings and the other is illustrated with photos. Students are then asked to indicate which book they prefer. This is an example of which of the following designs?

Concurrent-measures design

To evaluate how well a study supports a frequency claim, you need to focus most on evaluating which of the following validities?

Construct validity and external validity

Which of the following is a threat to internal validity found in within-groups designs but not in independent-groups designs?

Design confounds

Stefan wants to make a causal claim in his dissertation. Which of the following is necessary?

He must measure all of his variables.

Observer bias can threaten which of the following big validities?

Internal validity and construct validity

Which of the following CANNOT be said of the interaction in a study?

It can exist even if the main effects are not significant

According to the textbook, why is it important to study interactions?

Many outcomes in psychology are interactions.

Which of the following research designs is used to address possible selection effects?

Matched-groups designs

Dr. Dormeur studies sleep and sleep disorders. She is curious as to whether technology exposure before bedtime causes people to fall asleep more slowly. She recruits a sample of 60 middle-aged women from a local church who reported no history of sleep problems. She creates three conditions. All participants come to the sleep lab for three nights in a row and experience all three conditions. In the first condition (A), participants were asked to play an online game (Candy Crush) on an iPad for 10 minutes prior to going to bed. In the second condition (B), participants were asked to read an article using an iPad that discussed tricks and tips for improving one's score on Candy Crush (which took about 10 minutes). In the third condition (C), participants were asked to read a newspaper article about the inventor of Candy Crush (which took about 10 minutes). With the use of an electroencephalograph (EEG), the researcher measures how long it takes participants to fall asleep. Which of the following designs is Dr. Dormeur using?

Repeated-measures design

What can researchers do to reduce the risk of measurement error?

Select measures that have high reliability and validity

A researcher's attempt to control sounds, smells, and even temperature in a testing environment is meant to reduce which of the following?

Situation noise

Dr. Dormeur studies sleep and sleep disorders. She is curious as to whether technology exposure before bedtime causes people to fall asleep more slowly. She recruits a sample of 60 middle-aged women from a local church who reported no history of sleep problems. She creates three conditions. All participants come to the sleep lab for three nights in a row and experience all three conditions. In the first condition (A), participants were asked to play an online game (Candy Crush) on an iPad for 10 minutes prior to going to bed. In the second condition (B), participants were asked to read an article using an iPad that discussed tricks and tips for improving one's score on Candy Crush (which took about 10 minutes). In the third condition (C), participants were asked to read a newspaper article about the inventor of Candy Crush (which took about 10 minutes). With the use of an electroencephalograph (EEG), the researcher measures how long it takes participants to fall asleep. Given that there are three conditions/levels of the independent variable, how many orders of the conditions are possible in Dr. Dormeur's study?

Six

Neely is examining the graph of an interaction and sees that one line is flat and one line rises sharply to the right. Which of the following should Neely conclude?

There is a spreading interaction.

Which of the following is an advantage of within-groups designs?

These designs rely on fewer participants.

Which of the following is true of ceiling and floor effects?

They can be caused by poorly designed dependent variables.

What are the two main reasons to conduct a factorial study?

To test limits and to test theories

Which of the following is NOT a reason that a study might yield a null result?

Use of a within-subjects design

When a double-blind study is not possible, an acceptable alternative may be __________.

a masked design

Anderson is reading his morning paper and sees the following headline: "Men Should Avoid Rock Music When Playing Board Games." (This headline is based on a study conducted by Fancourt, Burton, & Williamon, 2016.) In the study, men and women played the game "Operation" when listening to different types of music. Male participants performed worse when listening to AC/DC than when listening to Mozart, but female participants' performance did not differ based on music. In this study, the researchers recorded how many errors participants committed. This is an example of which of the following?

a measured variable

When researchers conduct an experiment comparing two different treatment conditions, they are likely to be more concerned with validity than validity.

internal; external

A variable that the researcher controls is a _____________variable.

manipulated

Which of the following could be an independent variable in a causal claim?

one that is manipulated

Which of the following is a dependent variable?

one that is measured

Practice effects and carryover effects are examples of _______________ effects.

order

The ability for a study to reveal a statistically significant difference between the levels of an independent variable when one truly exists is known as:

power.

A threat to internal validity occurs only if a potential design confound varies along with the independent variable.

systematically

Dr. Kang, a cognitive psychologist, conducts an experiment examining the effect of emotion on memory. He provides lists of 15 words to two groups of participants at his university. He puts the names of all the participants in a hat. The first 20 names he assigns to Group A and the last 20 he assigns to Group B. Group A is given a list of words that are very emotional in content (e.g., passion, murder). Group B is given a list of words that are neutral in content (e.g., houseplant, desk). He then measures how many words each group is able to remember after being distracted for 5 minutes by watching a video about the history of the university. He finds that Group A remembers 15% more words than Group B. Dr. Kang's decision to assign participants randomly to Group A and Group B increases which of the following?

the internal validity of the study

Anderson is reading his morning paper and sees the following headline: "Men Should Avoid Rock Music When Playing Board Games." (This headline is based on a study conducted by Fancourt, Burton, & Williamon, 2016.) In the study, men and women played the game "Operation" when listening to different types of music. Male participants performed worse when listening to AC/DC than when listening to Mozart, but female participants' performance did not differ based on music. Which of the following is a variable in this study?

the sex of the participant

Anderson is reading his morning paper and sees the following headline: "Men Should Avoid Rock Music When Playing Board Games." (This headline is based on a study conducted by Fancourt, Burton, & Williamon, 2016.) In the study, men and women played the game "Operation" when listening to different types of music. Male participants performed worse when listening to AC/DC than when listening to Mozart, but female participants' performance did not differ based on music. Which of the following is a constant in this study?

the type of game