Final Exam: Chapter 9

Covariate:

a continuous variable included in the statistical analysis as a way of statistically controlling for variance due to that variable

What is a Placebo?

a false experimental treatment disguising the fact that no real treatment is administered

Maturation effect:

a function of time and the naturally occurring events that coincide with growth and experience

Experimental group:

a group of subjects to whom an experimental treatment is administered

What is a control group?

a group of subjects to whom no experimental treatment is administered which serves as a baseline for comparison

Testing effects:

a nuisance effect occurring when the initial measurement or test alerts or primes subjects in a way that affects their response to the experimental treatments

Instrumentation effect:

a nuisance effect that occurs when a change in the wording of questions, a change in interviewers, or change in other procedures causes a change in the dependent variable

Manipulation check:

a validity test of an experimental manipulation to make sure that the manipulation does produce differences in the independent variable

Confound:

an experimental confound means that there is an alternative explanation beyond the experimental variables for any observed differences in the dependent variable

Matching involves...

assigning subjects in a way that a particular characteristic is the same in each group

Counterbalancing:

attempts to eliminate the cofounding effects of order of presentation by requiring that one fourth of the subjects be exposed to treatment A first, one fourth exposed to treatment B first, one fourth exposed to treatment C first, and finally one fourth to treatment D first

Tachistoscope:

device that controls the amount of time a subject is exposed to a visual image

What is Interaction Effect?

differences in a dependent variable due to a specific combination of independent variables

Between-subjects design:

each subject receives only one treatment combination

Internal validity:

exists to the extent that an experimental variable is truly reasonable for any variance in the dependent variable

Demand characteristic:

experimental design element or procedure that unintentionally provides subjects with hints about the research hypothesis

What are Repeated Measures?

experiments in which an individual subject is exposed to more than one level of an experimental treatment

What is Test-market Sabotage?

intentional attempts to disrupt the results of a test-market being conducted by another firm

Within-subjects design:

involves repeated measures because with each treatment the same subject is measured

What are Attention Filters?

items that have known and obvious answers included just to see if participants are playing along

Constancy of conditions:

means that subjects in all experimental groups are exposed to identical conditions except for the differing experimental treatments

Systematic or non sampling error:

occurs if the sampling units in an experimental cell are somehow different than the units in another cell, and this difference affects the dependent variable

Demand effect:

occurs when demand characteristics actually affect the dependent variable

History effect:

occurs when some change other than experimental treatment occurs during the course of an experiment that affects the dependent variable

Mortality effect (sample attrition):

occurs when some subjects withdraw from the experiment before it is completed

Experimental condition:

one of the possible levels of an experiment variable manipulation

Experimental treatment:

term referring to the way an experimental variable is manipulated

What is External validity?

the accuracy with which experimental results can be generalized beyond the experimental subjects

Placebo Effect:

the effect in a dependent variable associated with the psychological impact that goes along with the knowledge of some treatment being administered

What is Main Effect?

the experimental difference in dependent variable means between different levels of any single experimental variable

Randomization:

the random assignment of subject and treatments to groups; it is one device for equally distributing the effects of extraneous variables to all conditions

What is a laboratory experiment?

the researcher has more complete control over the research setting and extraneous variables

Subjects:

the sampling units for an experiment, usually human participants in research who are subjected to some experimental manipulation

Test units:

the subjects or other entities whose responses to the experimental treatment are measured or observed

What is the most common type of field marketing experiemnt?

the test-market * used to determine the impact of different promotional approaches on sales and brand image

What are the four important design elements in Experimental design?

1. manipulation of the independent variable 2. selection and measurement of the dependent variable 3. selection and assignment of experimental subjects 4. control over extraneous variables

What are blocking variables?

categorical variables included in the statistical analysis of experimental data as a way of statistically controlling or accounting for variance due to that variable

Cohort effect:

refers to a change in the dependent variable that occurs because members of one experimental group experienced different historical situations than members of other experimental groups

Cell:

refers to a specific treatment combination associated with an experimental group

Field experiment:

research projects involving experimental manipulations that are implemented in a natural environment