Research in Psych - Chapter 1-6

general; specific

A hypothesis is a __________ statement and a prediction is a __________ statement.

The external validity of the report

A journal article reports that a new teaching strategy is very effective for first-grade students. A teacher wonders if the same strategy would be effective for a class of third-grade students. What is the teacher questioning?

Nonexperimental

A research study attempts to describe the relationship between self-esteem and birth order position by measuring self-esteem for each individual in a group of first-born boys, and then comparing the results with self-esteem scores for a group of later-born boys. Which research strategy is being used?

predictive

A research study reports that participants who scored high on a new test measuring self-esteem made eye contact during an interview, whereas participants who scored low on the test avoided eye contact. Assuming that more eye contact is associated with higher self-esteem, what kind of validity is being demonstrated?

Research participants

A researcher conducts a study in which 50 college students are assigned to different treatments and tested. In the study, the students are called

Basic research

A researcher is intrigued by an explanation of children's problem-solving strategies found in a journal article and develops a research study to determine whether the article's ideas are correct. How would this study be classified?

Internal validity

A researcher measures mood for a group of participants who have listened to happy music for 20 minutes and for a second group who have listened to sad music for 20 minutes. If different mood scores are obtained for the two groups, the researcher would like to conclude that music influences mood. However, the happy music group was tested in a room painted yellow and the sad music group was in a room painted dark brown and the researcher is concerned that the room color and not the music may influence mood scores. What kind of validity is being questioned?

Convenience sampling

A researcher recruits a sample of 25 preschool children for a research study by posting an announcement in a local daycare center describing the study and offering a $10 payment for participation. What kind of sampling is the researcher using?

Stratified random sampling

A researcher would like to describe and compare the attitudes of four different ethnic groups of students at a local state college. What kind of sampling would be best to obtain participants for the study?

Quota sampling

A researcher would like to select a sample of 50 people so that five different age groups are equally represented in the sample. Assuming that the researcher does not know the entire list of people in the population, which sampling technique should be used?

Method of empiricism

A restaurant chef tried replacing rice with pasta in one of her recipes to see what would happen. Which method of acquiring knowledge is she using?

confounding

A study examining the relationship between humor and memory compares memory performance scores for one group presented with humorous sentences and a second group presented with nonhumorous sentences. The participants in one group are primarily 8-year-old students and those in the second group are primarily 10-year-old students. In this study, age is potentially a(n) ________ variable.

Cluster sampling

A teacher obtains a sample of children from a fifth-grade classroom by randomly selecting the third, fifth, and eighth rows and taking all the students in those rows. What kind of sampling is being used?

Ratio

After measuring a set of individuals, a researcher finds that Bob's score is three times greater than Jane's score. What scale of measurement is being used?

Ordinal

An elementary school teacher separates students into high, medium, and low reading skill groups. What scale of measurement is being used to create the groups?

Behavioral

Counting the number of times a third-grade student leaves his or her seat without permission during a 30-minute observation period is an example of using what modality of measurement?

Demand characteristics

Cues given to participants about how they are expected to behave define which of the following terms?

A sample

Dr. Near conducts an experiment on memory for individuals who are above the age of 65. Although there are millions of people above the age of 65, she selects a group of 25 to participate in the experiment. What name is given to the group of 25?

high; low

Experimental research studies tend to have very _______ internal validity but often have relatively _______ external validity.

Nonprobability sampling

For situations in which the researcher cannot know the complete list of potential participants, what kind of sampling is necessary?

What conditions promote student learning in an elementary classroom?

For which of the following questions would the scientific method be an appropriate method for seeking an answer

The results may be limited to individuals who have experienced a pretest.

How can sensitization threaten external validity of a study?

Applied research

How would research studies that are intended to answer practical problems be classified?

Informed consent

If a researcher explains what will happen in a research study using language that potential participants probably cannot understand, then what ethical guideline is being violated?

Random sampling

If each person in a large group has an equal chance of being included in an experiment, then what kind of sampling is being used?

Rational method

Last year Tim and his friend Jack were both too short to ride the roller coaster. Jack went to the park this year and was tall enough to ride. Tim knows that he is taller than Jack, so he knows that he will be able to ride the roller coaster as well. Which method of knowing is Tim using?

Positive

Research results indicate that the more time individuals spend watching educational television programs as preschool children, the higher their high school grades will be. What kind of relationship exists between educational TV and high school grades?

External validity

Results from a research study suggest that a stop-smoking program is very successful. However, the participants who volunteered for the study were all highly motivated to quit smoking and the researcher is concerned that the same results may not be obtained for smokers who are not as motivated. What kind of validity is being questioned?

external validity.

The degree to which your research results generalize beyond the specific characteristics of your study refers to

Identifying a topic area and searching the literature to find a research question.

The first step in the research process is

All of the above

The guidelines for nonhuman subjects in research are similar to the guidelines for human participants but also include extra provisions concerning what additional topic(s)? a. Housing b. Medical care c. Daily maintenance

Physiological

Using a PET scan to measure brain activity while participants solve mathematics problems is an example of using what modality of measurement?

Self-report

Using an anonymous questionnaire to determine how many times students send or receive text messages during class is an example of using what modality of measurement?

The size of the differences

What additional information is obtained by measuring on an interval scale compared to an ordinal scale?

Internal validity

What aspect of a study is threatened if the participants are tested in one treatment condition at one time and then tested in a second treatment condition at a different time?

Scientific answers are obtained without influence by the researcher's biases or beliefs.

What is meant by saying that "science is objective"?

To provide a definition and a method for measuring a hypothetical construct

What is the goal of an operational definition?

It describes the overall purpose and rationale of the research.

What is typically included in the introduction section of a research article?

It provides the details of the methodology used in the study

What is typically included in the method section of a research article?

Inductive reasoning

What kind of reasoning uses a few specific observations to produce a general hypothesis?

Medical research with humans

What kind of research was the focus for most of the early attempts to establish ethical research guidelines?

The accessible population

What name is given to the group of individuals from which researchers actually select participants for research studies?

All of the above

What questions should you ask when reading an introduction to a research article? a. Is the literature review up-to-date? b. Is the hypothesis related to the literature reviewed? c. Does the prediction logically follow the hypothesis?

Construct

What term is used for a variable that cannot be observed or measured directly but is useful for describing and explaining behavior?

The method of tenacity

Which method of knowing is being used by a student who believes that his performance on tests is influenced by wearing a lucky hat?

Method of authority

Which method of knowing is used when you find the address and phone number of a restaurant by googling the name of the restaurant?

Measurement cannot be valid unless it is reliable

Which of the following accurately describes the relationship between validity and reliability?

Extraneous

Which of the following describes a variable that exists in a study but is not being directly examined?

They try to act so that their data are in contrast to the hypothesis.

Which of the following describes participants taking on the negativistic subject role?

Abstract

Which of the following is a brief summary of a psychology article?

All of the other options are disadvantages.

Which of the following is a disadvantage of using an operational definition? a. The operational definition may not be an accurate reflection of the construct. b. The operational definition may leave out important components of the construct. c. The operational definition may include extra components that are not part of the construct.

All of the other options are differences between science and pseudoscience

Which of the following is a distinction between science and pseudoscience?

A research design

Which of the following is a general plan for implementing a research strategy?

Insuring informed consent

Which of the following is a responsibility for the IRB but is not mentioned in the responsibilities for the IACUC?

All of the above

Which of the following is a responsibility of the IRB? a. They decide whether the process for selecting participants is fair and equitable. b. They decide whether it is necessary to have a signed informed consent form for each participant. c. They decide whether the privacy and confidentially of participants is protected.

All of the above are examples of plagiarism

Which of the following is an example of plagiarism? a. Copying someone else's words without giving them credit b. Paraphrasing someone else's words without giving them credit c. Using someone else's ideas without giving them credit

There is no relationship between fatigue and reaction time.

Which of the following is not a good example of a research hypothesis?

A circular process that leads to a tentative answer

Which of the following is the best description of the scientific method?

All of the above.

Which of the following is typical of quantitative research? a. It involves measuring variables for each individual. b. It usually involves numerical scores. c. It uses statistical analysis to summarize and interpret results. d. All of the above.

Title

Which of the following is usually the initial factor for determining whether a specific article is relevant to your research question?

What is the average number of text messages that a typical adolescent sends in a month?

Which of the following questions can be addressed with the descriptive strategy?

Convenience sampling

Which of the following sampling techniques is most likely to result in a biased sample?

Careful review by the IRB

Which of the following was not mentioned as a safeguard against fraud?

There is no danger because you can rely on primary sources for accurate information.

Which of the following would be a danger of relying upon a primary source?

Beneficence

Which principle of the Belmont Report corresponds to the guideline of "No Harm"?

casual observation

While shopping, you observe the behavior of adolescents at the mall and get some ideas about what may be causing the behavior. This is an example of getting research ideas from

The measurements may be distorted by the artifact.

Why is an artifact like experimenter bias a threat to the validity of measurement?

The scores are already so high that there is no chance of measuring improvement.

Why is the range effect known as a "ceiling effect" a problem for researchers?