Research methods final
a local hospital wanted to assess the ways its patients were being treated, the hospital hired several researchers to act as patients and record the way hospital personnel handled the admitting and preliminary evaluation procedures. in this example the researchers hired by the hospital were engaged in what?
a field study
Dr. sally is interested in how social media accessible on cell phones is used among girls in the eighth grade, what method would be the most effective way to pursue her topic?
a non-experimental qualitative method
Dr. Leary is interested in studying and describing the "lived experience" among factory workers in a small town who had recently lost their jobs, what method should he use in his research?
a qualitative method
Dr. brain wants to design a study to test for the relative effectiveness of three new antidepressants, what is the most appropriate experimental design?
a single factor multi-level design
a local Starbucks wanted to assess the way its customers were being treated, the company hired researchers to act as customers and systematically record the way personnel handled the order taking and delivery procedures, coding was used to record observations of a defined set of target behaviors, in this example the researchers hired were engaged in what?
a structured observational study
Harry is assessing the validity of a new measure of stress, he finds that its highly correlated with an existing measure, what type of test validity has Harry conducted?
a test of convergent validity
because there often is not enough evidence to fully evaluate a belief or claim many scientists cultivate what?
a tolerance for uncertainty
a friend tells you that "people only use 10% of their brain power" this is an example of what?
an incorrect statement based on folk psychology
what is one general strategy to reduce risks in psychological research?
carefully weigh the risks against the benefits
ineffective what is known as a threat to experimenters construct validity?
operationalization of the independent variable
descriptive statistics are used to what?
organize and summarize data
an empirical study is high in external validity if the way it was conducted supports generalizing the results to what?
people and situations beyond those actually studied
what statement reflects a fundamental feature of science discussed in the text?
empirical questions are answered using systematic empiricism
what are the two basic types of articles found in professional journals?
empirical research reports and review articles
if some unanticipated event occurred like a blizzard, while a one group pretest-posttest experiment was in progress and the event affected the dependent variable, what threat to internal validity would we most likely be concerned with?
history
what reflects the characteristics of randomized clinical trial experimental design?
in this design the independent variable includes both treatment and control conditions
bill has conducted a study and is analyzing his data, what type of statistical analysis would bill need to use to determine if his findings are statistically significant?
inferential statistics
in order to make statements about the population from information from a sample we must use what?
inferential statistics
what are three common sources of research ideas discussed in the lecture and book?
informal observations, practical problems, previous research
the poor African men who served as subjects in the Tuskegee Syphilis study were told they were being treated for Syphilis but were left untreated, they were also not given the option to leave the study, this example reflects a violation of which of the most important aspects of the APA ethics code?
informed concept and use of deception
Sofia has just finished participating in an experiment that left her feeling very upset, she says "I had no idea that I could withdraw from the from the research once my participation had begun if I knew this I would have quit halfway through" what part of the required research protocol has the experimenter overlooked?
informed consent
cronbachs coefficient alpha is a measurement of what?
internal consistency
non-experimental studies tend to be lower in what than experimental methods?
internal validity
what is one of the main problems with using the scientific method to acquire knowledge?
it cannot be used to answer all questions
social anxiety is a persistent fear of one or more social or performance situations in which the person exposed to unfamiliar people or to possible scrutiny by others what does this passage reflect?
it is a conceptual definition of social anxiety
what is systematic empiricism?
learning based on observation
what best describes the type of research design used in Mangan and Fleck's study " online student evaluation of teaching: will professor hot and easy win the day?" ?
mixed methods research
to help ensure that she's properly designed her experiment on the effectiveness of a new anxiety drug Dr. sandy conducts a preliminary small-scale study to make sure that the new manipulation procedure works as planned, she has conducted a what?
pilot study
Dr. Apple is conducting a study on the effect of exercise on the level of perceived psychological stress he acquires randomly selected sample of planet fitness members who regularly exercise and compares them to a group of non-exercisers, is this a "true" experiment?
no because subjects were not randomly assigned to conditions
what level of measurement is a persons political party?
nominal
according to the text the type of sampling procedure most likely to be used in psychological research is what?
non-probability sampling
people sometimes suggest that psychology cannot be a science, this is untrue mainly because why?
psychology, like other branches of science, takes the scientific approach to understanding human behavior
what does creating public knowledge mean?
publishing the results of the research
what are the strengths and weaknesses of qualitative research in psychology when compared with quantitative research?
qualitative research can help researchers to generate new and interesting research questions and hypotheses, qualitative research can also provide rich and detailed descriptions of human behavior in the real-world contexts in which it occurs, however, quantitative researchers criticize qualitative methods on the grounds that they lack objectivity, are difficult to evaluate in terms of reliability and validity, and do not allow generalization to people or situations other than those actually studied
quasi-experimental research is research that resembles experimental research but is not true experimental research because why?
quasi-experiments lack random assignment to conditions
when answering a survey item the first and last "cognitive process" respondents will engage in are what respectively?
question interpretation and response editing
what are empirical questions?
questions about the world as it really is and can be answered through observation
according to the framework for thinking about ethical issues stanley milgrams studies in obedience to authority can be criticized for failing to adequately weigh the what against the what?
risks to the research participants, benefits to society
"Psychological disorders and other behavioral problems are part of the natural world. This means that questions about their nature, causes, and consequences are empirically testable and therefore subject to scientific study." The main idea of this passage is that what is relevant to clinical practice?
science
generally speaking someone whose work involves using systematic procedures to increase understanding of some aspect of the natural world is probably a what?
scientist
a study finds that people act more aggressively in the heat waves of summer than the cold spells of winter, because the results were statistically significant the researchers conclude that they have proven that high heat is associated with greater aggression. what is true about this study?
since the conclusion is based on statistical analysis the researchers have evidence of a relationship not proof
in psychological science, searching for evidence and considering alternatives before accepting claims about human behavior characterize the practice of what?
skepticism
what is an example of a "good" hypothesis?
smoking will increase the chances of lung cancer
partial correlation and multiple regression are complex correlational methods used to what?
statistically control for third variables
what reflects the two important characteristics of survey research as noted in the text?
surveys are based on respondent self-reports and considerable attention to sampling procedures
what are the three fundamental features of science?
systematic empiricism, asking empirical questions, creating public knowledge
what do psychological constructs represent?
tendencies to feel, think, or act uncertain ways
inferential statistics are used to what?
test for statistical significance
what would be the most useful in searching for an existing published psychological measure?
texts in print
what introduced federal guidelines that recognized the criteria of justice, respect, and beneficence in the treatment of human subjects?
the Belmont report
what introduced the requirement for the establishment of the IRB?
the National Research Act
the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms our expectations is known as what?
the confirmation bias
what is the correct chronological order of the emergence of ethics codes?
Nuremberg code, declaration of Helsinki, Belmont report, National Research Act
to see whether expressive writing affects peoples health, a researcher randomly assigns participants to two groups, one group participants are instructed to write about traumatic experiences the other group is instructed to write about neutral experiences, from this example what variable has been manipulated?
the expressive writing topic the subjects are instructed to write about
the greatest disadvantage or limitation associated with observational research methods is what?
the inability to identify cause and effect associations
true or false Rachel has concluded that the results of her experiment are statistically significant however there is no real effect of her independent variable in the population, it appears her conclusion is a Type 1 error?
true
true or false an interrupted time-series design can involve taking a set of measurements at intervals over a period of time both before and after an intervention of interest in two or more nonequivalent groups?
true
true or false as the numbers of bystanders increases, people are less likely to help someone in distress, this suggests that the size of a crowd and helping behavior are negatively correlated?
true
true or false conducting in-person interviews has the highest response rate but also tends to be the most expensive type of survey research?
true
true or false experimental methods tend to have higher internal validity than non-experimental methods?
true
true or false psychology is a science because it takes the scientific approach to understanding human behavior?
true
what represents a one group pretest-posttest design?
0X0
In the Tuskegee syphilis study conducted by the US Public Health Service from 1932 to 1972, African-American subjects were told they were being treated for their syphilis but actually were left untreated to see how the disease developed in untreated patients. The methods used violated moral principals that guide research today. how have each of these three groups of people may have been impacted by the unethical methods used in this study?
The research participants were impacted by the unethical methods used in this study because they were denied treatment for their syphilis. The scientific community was impacted because the study was unjust and deceptive, which possibly undermined the trustworthiness of scientists. Society was impacted as the study perpetrated an injustice upon poor African American men, further marginalizing this ethnic minority.
what is the first step of the four broad steps in the measurement process?
conceptually defining the construct
if an experimenter expects participants in a treatment group to perform better on a task than participants in a control group they might unintentionally the treatment group clearer instructions so they actually do perform better, in this study "experimenter expectations" is a what?
confounding, extraneous variable
psychological what cannot be observed?
constructs
in a survey of life satisfaction and dating frequency when the life satisfaction item came first the correlation between the two was only -.12, with the dating frequency item first the correlation was +.66 the difference in results is likely due to what?
context effects
a researcher interested in assessing the internal consistency of a measure would most likely compute to a statistic known as what?
cronbachs alpha
conducting descriptive and inferential statistical procedures would most likely occur in the what phase of the cycle of scientific research?
data analysis
at the conclusion of their participation researchers provide an opportunity to obtain appropriate information about the nature, results, and conclusions of the research and they take reasonable steps to correct any misconceptions that participants may have and address any possible adverse effects of participation, this process is known as what?
debriefing
what were some of the major focuses on the review and critique of Stanley Milgrams obedience studies?
deception, risk of harm, debriefing
people can react in a variety of ways to being measured that reduce the reliability and validity of the scores, for example Jake is completing a psychological measure and thinks he has figured out how the researcher expects him to behave, jake is reacting to the tests what?
demand characteristics
one reason why correlation does not imply causation is because of the what, which makes it impossible to determine the causal path?
directionality problem
Dr. Horst is interested in seeing if smiling causes a change in mood in a sample of depressed patients, his choice of research design should be what?
experimental because he is interested in a causal relationship between variables
an empirical study is high in what?
external validity
what might lower the internal validity of an experiment?
failing to effectively control for the effects of confounding variables
true or false PSYCH INFO is a popular psych blog?
false
true or false a Cronbach's alpha of <.03 is sufficient evidence of a measures reliability?
false
true or false a measure given at time 1 correlates r=.08 with the same measurement given at time 2 a week later from this we can conclude that this measure has acceptable content validity?
false
true or false according to federal policy research determined to be "at risk" can sometimes be exempt from full IRB review?
false
true or false an observational design would be used when testing for non-causal statistical relationships between variables?
false
true or false basic research is conducted primarily to create knowledge that will help solve real-world problems?
false
true or false complex correlational research can unambiguously establish that one variable causes another?
false
true or false generally speaking in assessing the validity of a measurement we want convergent validity coefficients to be as low as possible and divergent validity coefficients to be as high as possible?
false
true or false in conducting psychological research informed consent is always required?
false
true or false in creating a new measure its usually best to create single item measures if possible and to avoid creating multi-item scales?
false
true or false non-response bias is the term used to describe the typical response rate for surveys, which is around 10-15%?
false
true or false pretest only designs present the least number of threats to internal validity and therefore are the strongest types of quasi-experimental designs?
false
true or false proper management of expenses when conducting research is one of the most important aspects of APA standard 8?
false
true or false pseudoscientific claims tend to be falsifiable?
false
true or false qualitative research is done primarily to explore non-causal statistical relationships between variables?
false
true or false the primary purpose of random assignment is to manipulate the independent variable?
false
true or false to control for order effects counterbalancing is required in between subjects designs?
false
a positive correlation (+0.67) exists between job satisfaction and the number of positive interactions between co-workers, a negative correlation (-0.87) exists between job satisfaction and the number of negative interactions between co-workers, in what relationship can the most accurate predictions of job satisfaction be made?
the relationship between job satisfaction and negative interactions because the correlation coefficient is closer to -1
In the Tuskegee syphilis study conducted by the US Public Health Service from 1932 to 1972, African-American subjects were told they were being treated for their syphilis but actually were left untreated to see how the disease developed in untreated patients. The methods used violated moral principals that guide research today. According to the text and lecture, before conducting a study, researchers need to consider how violating moral principles apply to what three specific groups of people?
the research participants, the scientific community, and society
a friend says to you " I have a theory that in marital relationships, women initiate divorce more often than men" what is wrong with this statement?
the statement is a hypothesis not a theory
for centuries people believed the world was flat because it appeared to be flat, this belief is an example of what problem of empiricism?
there are limits on what is observable
according to the APA ethics codes deception is ethically acceptable only if what?
there is no other way to answer the research question without it
the primary purpose of random assignment is to what?
to control for extraneous, confounding variables
what are the four general moral principles that apply to scientific research?
weighing risks against benefits, acting responsibly and with integrity, seeking justice, and respecting peoples rights and dignity