Research Methods & Statistics Review 2

unrepresentative of

If a sample is biased, then it is ________ the population of interest.

People in a public park do not expect their behavior to be private

Imagine that he wants to videotape the children interacting in the park. Why would most psychologists have no problem with the ethics of Dr. Ewell's study?

interrater reliability and test-retest reliability

Which types of reliability can be analyzed with scatterplots?

Researchers have to look at the patterns of correlations for both types of validity.

Why are convergent and discriminant validity often evaluated together?

They may have poor construct validity

Why are double-barreled questions problematic?

• All members of the population are equally likely to be represented in the sample

Why do studies that use probability samples have excellent external validity?

• It is unlikely that the accuracy of estimates can be checked

Why is the use of representative samples especially important in frequency claims?

The external validity is low because this is a self-selected sample of online shoppers

• Shoppers often leave reviews for products that they purchased online. Which of the following best describes the external validity of product reviews on an online shopping site?

the strength and direction of the relationship between two measurements

A correlation coefficient and a scatterplot both provide what common pieces of information?

a code book

A developmental psychologist, is planning on conducting a study that involves watching children play together to determine how sharing behavior occurs in same-sex friend pairs compared to opposite-sex friend pairs. What can Dr. Ewell give to his research assistants to prevent observer bias?

PRO • surveys are excellent measures of subjective experiences (e.g., fear, anxiety) • surveys may be good measures of why people think they responded to the natural disaster the way they did (why they evacuated). CON • the faulty nature of people's memory, especially for vivid events (like a natural disaster). surveys are better for subjective information as opposed to objective information

A researcher is interested in using a survey to study people's experiences with natural disasters. Provide one reason why a survey is a good method to study this topic and one reason that a survey may not be a good method.

observer effects

A study by Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) involved telling teachers that some of their students were "bloomers" and would achieve rapid academic success within the next year. In fact, these students were no different than any of the other students in the class. At the end of the year, the "bloomers" showed more gains in IQ than the other students. It appeared that the teacher had unintentionally treated the "bloomers" in special ways. This is an example of?

Related negatively but not too strongly

An educational psychologist is testing the discriminant validity of a new measure of numerical learning difficulties. He gives his measure to a group of students along with another measure of verbal learning difficulties, which he predicts should not be strongly related to numerical learning difficulties. What correlation would the psychologist hope to find in order to establish high discriminant validity?

cancel out measurement error

Asking many similar questions when trying to measure a concept is done to

a strong relationship

Before using a measure in her study, Dr. Rodriquez gives the measure to a group of participants on the first day of the semester and again on the last day of the semester. Dr. Rodriquez is examining the scatterplot of the data she collected on the first day of the semester and the last day of the semester. On the scatterplot, she sees that the dots are very close to forming a diagonal line. This indicates what?

quota sampling

Dr. Choi is studying the extent to which Asian American mothers enforce gender roles at home. She wants to ensure that her sample includes 50 first generation, 50 second generation, and 50 third generation immigrants. If Dr. Choi obtains her particular sample by putting flyers in the local Asian grocery store, which of the following sampling techniques is she using?

•people suffering from a mental illness, •people with mental illness living in a residential facility, •people with a mental illness living in her state, •people living in her state, or people convicted of crimes

Dr. Dowling is a clinical psychologist who is interested in the link between mental illness and criminal activity. She gets IRB permission to study patients at all five inpatient/residential mental health facilities in her state. There are 4,307 patients currently living in these facilities. She asks patients whether they have ever been arrested for a crime and whether they have ever been convicted of a crime. She collects a sample size of 1,369. She finds that 27% (+/-3%) report having been arrested for a crime but that only 13% (+/-3%) have been convicted of a crime. •Name two populations of interest to which Dr. Dowling could reasonably generalize her findings. State which of these two populations would be more generalizable to her findings, and explain why that is the case.

It appears the journalist is confusing statistical validity with external validity. Sample size is unrelated to external validity

Dr. Dowling is interviewed by a journalist about the findings of her study. The journalist criticizes the sample size as being too small and says that, because of that, the findings do not really have any real-world meaning. How should Dr. Dowling respond?

acquiescence

Dr. Gore is conducting a survey examining people's opinions toward funding for collegiate athletics on his campus. He notices that several participants agree with all 12 questions. This is most likely due to

The margin of error would become smaller

Dr. Sanchez conducts a simple random sample of 500 men who became fathers for the first time in the past year. He finds that 23% of them report being unsure of their ability to be good fathers, plus or minus 4%. If Dr. Sanchez increased his sample size to 1,000, which of the following would happen?

This design deals with observer bias and observer effects by keeping the observer unaware of the condition they are observing, so there is no way their expectations can either affect their measurements/observations of the participants (observer bias) or cause the participants to change their behavior in response to the expectations of the researcher (observer effects)

Explain how a masked or blind design deals with both observer bias and observer effects

Snowball sampling may be beneficial when the population of interest is rare in some way. • Representative sampling techniques may not be able to find a sufficient number of people who have the condition or experience snowball sampling should be used in exceptional cases

Explain why a researcher may wish to choose snowball sampling over a representative sampling technique

• There is no expectation of privacy in public • Researchers do not identify the identities of the people they observe.

Explain why observational methods are typically seen by most psychologists as ethical.

Socially desirable responding happens when participants are embarrassed, shy, or uncomfortable about giving an unpopular answer. • ensuring anonymity, • creating questions designed to assess this tendency, • getting others to rate participants (e.g., friends), • using specialized measures to keep participants from knowing exactly what they are studying (e.g., the IAT)

Explain why socially desirable responding happens. Name one way to decrease the likelihood of its occurrence.

face

Fatima is trying to measure gender role stereotypes using a gender role survey. She believes that her participants will be able to tell that she is measuring gender role stereotypes because the survey looks like it is measuring stereotypes. Fatima believes that her scale has what type of validity?

whether the participant drank coffee in the 24 hours prior to the study

Hosea is studying the relationship between caffeine consumption and problem-solving ability. How can she use a categorical way to operationalize caffeine consumption?

Both identify subgroups that need to be studied

How are quota sampling and stratified random sampling similar?

A self-report measure must involve asking a person how stressed they are in some way (the person must report on themselves). • A physiological measure must involve collecting some biological information (e.g., heart rate, cortisol levels). • A behavioral measure must involve collecting data that can be directly observed (e.g., number of times a person looks at the clock during an exam, how long student waits to speak to a professor

Imagine that you are trying to measure people's stress. Provide an example of measuring stress using a self-report measure, a physiological measure, and a behavioral measure.

ordinal definition: the most stressed people in the class • interval definition: the rating of stress on a 1-10 scale • ratio definition : number of stressful days experienced in the past week

Imagine that you are trying to measure people's stress. Provide three quantitative definitions of stress: one that is ordinal, one that is interval, and one that is ratio

a self-report measurement

Naomi is studying the effect of popularity on academic success for her research methods project. To do this, she has elementary school students rate how popular each member of their class is. She then uses this information to rank the students on popularity (e.g., John is the most popular, Vanessa is the second-most popular). What type of variable is this?

• researchers; participants

Observer bias relates mainly to ________, whereas observer effects stem from ________.

stratified random sampling

Professor Adeyemi is examining well-being after retirement in a city, and it is important to have excellent external validity. If Professor Adeyemi obtains a sample that reflects the demographic proportions of their city, which of the following sampling techniques is most likely being used?

all students he is currently teaching

Professor Kramer has decided to measure how happy his students are with his teaching this semester. He is teaching two classes this semester—Psychology and Law and Introduction to Neuroscience. He gives his students a survey. What is Dr. Kramer's likely population of interest?

Hide their presence from the person they are observing. This is effective because the person cannot behave differently as a function of being observed if they are not aware they are being observed. • Waiting until the person being observed has become desensitized to being observed and is likely to go back to responding "normally." • Examining some product of people's behavior rather than the people's behavior itself. For example, instead of observing people's eating behavior, you could count the number of chips that are missing from the bowl after the study. This is effective because this method is unobtrusive and people will not be aware that their behavior's results are being observed

State three ways that researchers could reduce reactivity in a study and why each one is effective.

Reactivity

The construct validity of observations can be threatened by

multistage samples sample both clusters and participants; cluster samples just sample clusters

The difference between a cluster sample and a multistage sample is

to obtain evidence for criterion validity

To test his measure, Dr. Sheffield gives his measure to a group of people in Gamblers Anonymous (GA) and another group in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). He finds that people in the GA group have higher scores on his new measure than people in the AA group. Why did Dr. Sheffield do this?

a ratio scale of measurement

Todd is studying the effect of popularity on academic success for his research methods project. He decides to measure popularity by asking each elementary school student to tell him how many friends he or she has. He assumes that more friends means the student is more popular. What type of variable is this?

The researchers have the same conceptual definitions

Two researchers tell you they study the same thing. However, when you look at their research papers, they do not use similar methodologies or measurements. How is this possible?

snowball sampling

Upon contacting her participants for a UFO study, a researcher asks them to refer her to even more people they may know who have been abducted. This is an example of what kind of sampling?

If a measure is valid, it is also reliable.

What does it mean that "reliability is necessary but not sufficient for validity"?

correlate the measure with a behavior, such as amount of money lost in a casino during the past year

What else can he do to test criterion validity?

Random sampling is used to generate a representative sample and/or is used to enhance external validity. • Random assignment is used in experimental designs to make sure experimental groups are equal and/or is used to enhance internal validity

What is the difference between random sampling and random assignment?

discriminant

When your scale does not correlate with other, unrelated procedures or scales, it has ________ validity.

Participants would not be able to accurately keep track of so much data

Why would behavioral observation be a good research method for studying a high-frequency behavior (e.g., number of words spoken in a day or number of steps taken in a week)?

criterion validity

Your friend Dominic is complaining about having to take the Graduate Record Examination (GRE), a test that is required to go to graduate school and is similar to the ACT and SAT. He complains, "Tests like the GRE don't really measure how well people actually do in graduate school." Dominic is questioning the ________ of the test.

People are not always able to accurately explain their responses

Zariah placed five identical pairs of black socks on a table and asked passersby to rate which pair of socks were their favorites. Although the socks were exactly the same, people rated the last pair of socks as having the highest quality. How should Zariah interpret this result?

divergent

• Another word for discriminant validity is ________ validity.

using scales with an even number of response options

• Dr. Paul is concerned about a fence-sitting response set when he conducts his survey. Which of the following might you recommend to decrease fence sitting?

Split up the question into two separate questions.

• In developing a measure of "need for cognition" (the degree to which people like thinking and problem-solving), Dr. Jonason asks his participants to rate their agreement with the following statement: "I frequently solve and enjoy solving crossword puzzles." What should Dr. Jonason do to improve the construct validity of this question?