PSYC 344 Research Methods Ch. 4-7
A correlation-based statistic called _________ is commonly used to determine internal reliability.
Cronbach's alpha
Why are convergent and discriminant validity often evaluated together?
Both involve collecting information from a lot of psychological measures of theoretical interest.
Which of the following is the most direct way to control for question order effects?
Prepare different versions of the survey, varying the order of the questions.
In considering whether research is ethical, which of the following are balanced against each other?
Risk to participants versus value of the knowledge gained
Why are double-barreled questions problematic?
They may have poor construct validity
in which of the following cases would a large sample especially be needed?
a study of teenagers whose parents are both deployed overseas in the military
Ethical decision making should be:
a thoughtful balance
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.
criterion validity
which of the following is NOT an example of a probability sample?
convenience sample
Faking good is also known as:
socially desirable responding
Unobtrusive observation is done to counteract which of the following?
Reactivity
Which of the following questions is most likely to result in a socially desirable answer?
"Have you ever sent a 'sext' (a sexually explicit message or photo)?"
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 could be an example of all of the following EXCEPT:
fence sitting.
external validity is most important for which of the following claims?
frequency claims
another term for probability sampling is
random sampling
a biased sample consists of too many _______ cases
unusual
An in-person institutional review board (IRB) meeting would probably be required for all of the following studied EXCEPT:
An anonymous survey asking whether students want the campus mascot to be changed
Which of the following is a disadvantage of using open-ended questions?
The answers must be coded
Dr. Ewell, 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. Dr. Ewell decides to collect his data at a neighborhood park. He has his two research assistants pose as a married couple having a picnic. While having their picnic, they take detailed records of the sharing behavior of the children and note whether the pairs are same sex or opposite sex. Given his use of two research assistants, he must establish the of their measures
interrater reliability
A question that leads people to answer in a particular way is known as a(n):
leading question
A helpful tool for visualizing test-retest reliability and interrater reliability is a:
scatterplot
Another word for observer effects is:
expectancy effects.
which of the following is true of a nonrepresentative sample in a research claim?
you should ask whether it is relevant to what the researchers are measuring
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. Which of the following correlations would the psychologist hope to find in order to establish discriminant validity?
r = —0.1 8
If a question has response options such as strongly agree, agree, neither agree nor disagree, disagree, and strongly disagree, this is known as a(n):
Likert scale
Which of the following studies would probably require written informed consent?
A confidential study examining income level and voting behavior
Dr. Rodriquez is considering conducting a study examining whether narcissistic people have poorer romantic relationships than those who are not narcissistic. One of her first tasks is to determine which of her participants are narcissistic and which are not. She decides to use the scale created by a colleague, the Donal scale. Question 1 reads, Il l tend not to think about other people as much as I think about myself." Question 2 reads, "l do not have a high opinion of myself." Question 3 reads, "l think other people think I am really special." Dr. Rodriquez decides to test the internal reliability of her measure. Which of the following results would make her happy?
0.95
Dr. Gahan decides to create a questionnaire asking about people's attitudes toward immigration (a socially sensitive topic). He should be most concerned about which of the following?
Fence sitting
Which of the following determines the construct validity of a survey question?
How well it is worded
Dr. Ewell, 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. Imagine that Dr. Ewell wants to videotape the children interacting in the park. Why would most psychologists have no problem with the ethics of Dr. Ewell's study?
People in a public park do not expect their behavior to be private
The issue of obtaining informed consent deals with which of the following principles of the Belmont Report?
The principle of respect for persons
Establishing construct validity would probably be most important for which of the following?
A measure of spirituality
Which of the following is a poll likely to measure?
A person's opinions about a healthcare law
Your friend Alanna says that when examining validity, you always want to see positive correlations. Why is she wrong?
Both the strength and the direction of a correlation matter when examining validity.
What is the term for a researcher's definition of the variable in question at a theoretical level?
Conceptual definition
which of the following is true of question wording?
Researchers may alter the wording of a question to determine if it does have an effect on the results
Which of the following is true when asking people questions about themselves?
The confidence people have in their memories is not strongly related to the accuracy of their memory.
The belief that the participants in a research study should be representative of the type of people who would also benefit from the findings of the research stems from which principle of the Belmont Report?
The principle of justice
Dr. Kushner is planning on conducting a study next semester. He is curious as to whether sleep deprivation is associated with poorer cognitive performance. For example, if you sleep poorly the night before a big exam, will you do worse? Dr. Kushner is especially curious about selective sleep deprivation, where people are kept from entering REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. Using an electroencephalograph (EEG) to monitor brain waves, he plans to let participants sleep until they enter REM sleep and then wake them. After the participants are awake for one minute, Dr. Kushner plans to let them return to sleep. As they enter REM sleep again, he will wake them again and follow the same procedure. He plans to do this through the entire eight-hour sleep session. The following morning, participants will be asked to take a sample SAT test. Dr. Kushner is deciding whether he needs to give participants a reason for waking them up several times during the night. He knows that he cannot tell them the real reason, but he is unsure whether he should deceive them (give them a false reason why he is waking them up) or provide them with no cover story at all. Which of the following issues should be considered most heavily when deciding whether to use deception?
Whether he can conduct the study just as well without deception
Dr. Ewell, 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. Dr. Ewell decides to collect his data at a neighborhood park. He has his two research assistants pose as a married couple having a picnic. While having their picnic, they take detailed records of the sharing behavior of the children and note whether the pairs are same sex or opposite sex. This technique is known as:
unobtrusive observation
Which of the following is true of behavioral observation?
It may tell a different story than data collected by self-report questions.
The use of debriefing in a study such as Milgram's obedience study appeals to which principle of the Belmont Report?
Principle of beneficence
The American Psychological Association's ethical guidelines have principles and standards
5; 10
In which of the following studies is self-report the best data collection option?
A study examining the intensity of pain during natural childbirth
In order to use the known groups paradigm to establish criterion validity, which of the following is necessary?
After testing, the groups should have significantly different scores on the measure.
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: "l frequently solve and enjoy solving crossword puzzles and Sudoku puzzles." What is the problem with this question?
It is a double-barreled question.
for his research methods class project, Hiro is studying the effect of pet ownership on stress levels. Although a lot of research has been done on dog and cat owners, not much is known about other pets, so Hiro decides to study bird owners. Which of the following would demonstrate a purposive sampling technique?
He recruits bird owner by emailing members of the National Bird Owners association and asking for participants.
when you are interrogating the external validity of a sample, which is the most important question to ask?
How was the sample collected?
Which of the following is another term for response sets?
Nondifferentiation
Professor Singh creates a survey to measure how happy his students are with his teaching this semester. He is teaching two classes: Psychology and Law and Introduction to Neuroscience. He writes the following questions for his survey: A. What was your favorite part of this class? B. Please rate how much you agree with the following statement using the scale below: This was one of my favorite classes all semester. 1 234 5 Strongly Agree Agree Neither agree nor disagree Disagree Strongly disagree C. Which of the following is most true of you? a. I am a very serious student. b. I try only as hard as I have to. D. How easy did you feel this class was? 1 2 34 5 Easy Hard Which of the following is an example of an open-ended question?
Question A
Which of the following is true of question wording?
Researchers may alter the wording of a question to determine if it does have an effect on the results.
The need to balance the potential costs and benefits to participants taking part in a research study is done to address which principle of the Belmont Report?
The principle of beneficence
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?
The researchers have the same conceptual definitions.
Which of the following is true of operational definitions?
The specification of operational definitions is one of the creative aspects of the research process.
Dr. Sheffield is a clinical psychologist who specializes in treating pathological gambling. Pathological gambling is defined as being unable to resist impulses to gamble. Bothered by not having a good measure that he can give to clients to determine whether they are suffering from this condition, he creates a new measure of pathological gambling. The measure has 15 questions, and it takes 20 minutes to complete. Dr. Sheffield has now decided that he wants to test his measure on some university students (who some estimates say have a 6% prevalence rate of compulsive gambling). He has a group of 1 00 university students complete his measure. He also has them complete two other measures (one that measures addictive behavior in general and one that measures general attitudes toward gambling). He finds that his new measure is positively associated with each of these other measures. This procedure has provided evidence for the _______ of Dr. Sheffield's measure.
convergent validity
If a measurement looks like it is a plausible operationalization of a conceptual variable, then it has:
face validity
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 all of his students a survey. If all of the students in Dr. Kramer's two classes complete the survey, then Dr. Kramer has done which of the following?
relied on a census
Observer bias relates mainly to _______ whereas observer effects stem from ______
researchers; participants
convenience sampling relies on which of the following?
studying people who are easy to find
Dr. Rodriquez is considering conducting a study examining whether narcissistic people have poorer romantic relationships than those who are not narcissistic. One of her first tasks is to determine which of her participants are narcissistic and which are not. She decides to use the scale created by a colleague, the Donal scale. Question 1 reads, "l tend not to think about other people as much as I think about myself." Question 2 reads, 'Il do not have a high opinion of myself." Question 3 reads, "1 think other people think I am really special." Dr. Rodriquez is concerned whether her measure will really measure narcissism or if it will measure some other related concept. She is concerned about the scale's
validity
Dr. Ewell, 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. Which of the following is Dr. Ewell likely to give his research assistants to prevent observer bias?
A codebook
Which of the following is a difference between a debriefing session following a study with deception compared to a debriefing session following a study without deception?
A deception study debriefing must attempt to restore a sense of honesty and trustworthiness.
You submit a study for approval by the institutional review board (IRB), and they tell you that written informed consent is required. Which of the following can be excluded from your informed consent document?
A description of the study's hypotheses
Dr. Rodriquez is considering conducting a study examining whether narcissistic people have poorer romantic relationships than those who are not narcissistic. One of her first tasks is to determine which of her participants are narcissistic and which are not. She decides to use the scale created by a colleague, the Donal scale. Question 1 reads, "l tend not to think about other people as much as I think about myself." Question 2 reads, "l do not have a high opinion of myself." Question 3 reads, 'I l think other people think I am really special." Before using the 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 which of the following?
A strong relationship
From an ethical standpoint, in what way is researching prisoners with tuberculosis similar to researching children with ADHD?
Both groups of participants have less autonomy than other types of participants.
Julian creates a survey asking participants first to report how happy they are in their marriage and then second to report how happy they are in their life. His advisor, Dr. Fuentes, recommends that he create a second version of the survey that reverses the order of these questions. Why is Julian's advisor recommending this?
He is concerned that Julian's results could be affected by question order.
When is it acceptable for a researcher to study only participants from a specific group, such as a researcher studying depression in a sample of Native American women?
If the specific group being studied is especially prone to the problem being studied (e.g., if depression rates are higher in Native American women)
RESEARCH STUDY 4.1: Dr. Kushner is planning on conducting a study next semester. He is curious as to whether sleep deprivation is associated with poorer cognitive performance. For example, if you sleep poorly the night before a big exam, will you do worse? Dr. Kushner is especially curious about selective sleep deprivation, where people are kept from entering REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. Using an electroencephalograph (EEG) to monitor brain waves, he plans to let participants sleep until they enter REM sleep and then wake them. After the participants are awake for one minute, Dr. Kushner plans to let them return to sleep. As they enter REM sleep again, he will wake them again and follow the same procedure. He plans to do this through the entire eight-hour sleep session. The following morning, participants will be asked to take a sample SAT test. Which of the following is true regarding obtaining informed consent in Dr. Kushner's study?
He needs to obtain informed consent because there is a likelihood of risk in his study.
Dr. Ewell, 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. Imagine that Dr. Ewell wants to videotape the children interacting in the park. Which of the following is true?
He will likely need to get permission to videotape the children prior to doing so.
Dr. Ewell, 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. Dr. Ewell is concerned that the children will behave differently because of the presence of research assistants. Which of the following could he do to address this concern?
Hide a video camera in the daycare center and record the children playing without them knowing
In which of the following ways is an institutional animal care and use committee (IACUC) different from an institutional review board (IRB)?
IACUCs monitor the care and treatment of animals throughout the study; IRBs do not monitor the care of human participants throughout the study
Dr. Rodriquez is considering conducting a study examining whether narcissistic people have poorer romantic relationships than those who are not narcissistic. One of her first tasks is to determine which of her participants are narcissistic and which are not. She decides to use the scale created by a colleague, the Donal scale. Question 1 reads, "1 tend not to think about other people as much as I think about myself." Question 2 reads, "l do not have a high opinion of myself." Question 3 reads, "l think other people think I am really special." Before using the measure in her study, Dr. Rodriquez analyzes the data she gets from her students. She looks at the relationship between each of the individual questions. She sees that participants who agree with Question 1 also agree with Question 3 and disagree with Question 2. This is a test of which of the following?
Internal reliability
Which types of reliability can be analyzed with scatterplots?
Interrater reliability and test-retest reliability
In interrogating the construct validity of a measure, which question should a researcher ask?
Is there enough evidence that this measure is valid?
Dr. Jewell is interested in measuring people's attitudes toward proposed tax cuts. One of his items reads, "People who support cutting taxes are not well informed about how the government works." What is the problem with this question?
It is a leading question
Which of the following is NOT a suitable reason for using debriefing in a study?
It prevents researchers from being sued
Which of the following statements is true of observational data?
Observational measures can be used to make frequency claims
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 which of the following?
Observer effects
Which of the following ethical violations proposed by the Belmont Report was NOT committed in the Tuskegee Study?
Participants were not given monetary payments for their time
Professor Singh creates a survey to measure how happy his students are with his teaching this semester. He is teaching two classes: Psychology and Law and Introduction to Neuroscience. He writes the following questions for his survey: A. What was your favorite part of this class? B. Please rate how much you agree with the following statement using the scale below: This was one of my favorite classes all semester. 1 234 5 Strongly Agree Agree Neither agree nor disagree Disagree Strongly disagree C. Which of the following is most true of you? a. I am a very serious student. b. I try only as hard as I have to. D. How easy did you feel this class was? 1 2 3 4 5 Easy Hard Which of the questions above is an example of a question that uses a Likert scale?
Question B
Professor Singh creates a survey to measure how happy his students are with his teaching this semester. He is teaching two classes: Psychology and Law and Introduction to Neuroscience. He writes the following questions for his survey: A. What was your favorite part of this class? B. Please rate how much you agree with the following statement using the scale below: This was one of my favorite classes all semester. 1 234 5 Strongly Agree Agree Neither agree nor disagree Disagree Strongly disagree C. Which of the following is most true of you? a. I am a very serious student. b. I try only as hard as I have to. D. How easy did you feel this class was? 1 2 34 5 Easy Hard Which of the questions above is an example of a question that uses a semantic differential scale?
Question D
Which of the following increases accurate responding?
Reverse-worded questions
Dr. Rodriquez is considering conducting a study examining whether narcissistic people have poorer romantic relationships than those who are not narcissistic. One of her first tasks is to determine which of her participants are narcissistic and which are not. She decides to use the scale created by a colleague, the Donal scale. Question 1 reads, "l tend not to think about other people as much as I think about myself." Question 2 reads, "l do not have a high opinion of myself." Question 3 reads, "l think other people think I am really special." Before using the 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. She then compares the scores between the two time points. This is a test of which of the following?
Test-retest reliability
Dr. Sheffield is a clinical psychologist who specializes in treating pathological gambling. Pathological gambling is defined as being unable to resist impulses to gamble. Bothered by not having a good measure that he can give to clients to determine whether they are suffering from this condition, he creates a new measure of pathological gambling. The measure has 15 questions, and it takes 20 minutes to complete. Dr. Sheffield wants to establish the discriminant validity of his pathological gambling measure. He gives his measure and three others to a group of 100 people. Which of the following provides the best evidence for discriminant validity?
That his measure is not strongly correlated with a measure of impulsivity
RESEARCH STUDY 4.1 : Dr. Kushner is planning on conducting a study next semester. He is curious as to whether sleep deprivation is associated with poorer cognitive performance. For example, if you sleep poorly the night before a big exam, will you do worse? Dr. Kushner is especially curious about selective sleep deprivation, where people are kept from entering REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. Using an electroencephalograph (EEG) to monitor brain waves, he plans to let participants sleep until they enter REM sleep and then wake them. After the participants are awake for one minute, Dr. Kushner plans to let them return to sleep. As they enter REM sleep again, he will wake them again and follow the same procedure. He plans to do this through the entire eight-hour sleep session. The following morning, participants will be asked to take a sample SAT test. Dr. Kushner's decision about the type of participants to recruit should be informed by which of the following principles of the Belmont Report?
The principle of justice
In addition to being ethical violations, why are data falsification and fabrication problematic?
They impede scientific progress
How do reverse-worded items address shortcuts?
They slow down readers, making them answer more carefully
Why might a researcher debrief his participants even if his study didn't include any deceptive elements?
To ensure that his participants had a good research experience
Dr. Kushner is planning on conducting a study next semester. He is curious as to whether sleep deprivation is associated with poorer cognitive performance. For example, if you sleep poorly the night before a big exam, will you do worse? Dr. Kushner is especially curious about selective sleep deprivation, where people are kept from entering REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. Using an electroencephalograph (EEG) to monitor brain waves, he plans to let participants sleep until they enter REM sleep and then wake them. After the participants are awake for one minute, Dr. Kushner plans to let them return to sleep. As they enter REM sleep again, he will wake them again and follow the same procedure. He plans to do this through the entire eight-hour sleep session. The following morning, participants will be asked to take a sample SAT test. Dr. Kushner asks his participants to provide informed consent. Doing this is adhering to which principle of the Belmont Report?
The principle of respect for persons
A correlation coefficient and a scatterplot both provide which of the following pieces of information?
The strength and direction of the relationship between two measurements
Hosea is studying the relationship between caffeine consumption and problem-solving ability. Which of the following is a quantitative way to operationalize problem-solving ability?
The time spent solving a math problem
Dr. Rodriquez is considering conducting a study examining whether narcissistic people have poorer romantic relationships than those who are not narcissistic. One of her first tasks is to determine which of her participants are narcissistic and which are not. She decides to use the scale created by a colleague, the Donal scale. Question 1 reads, "l tend not to think about other people as much as I think about myself." Question 2 reads, "l do not have a high opinion of myself." Question 3 reads, "l think other people think I am really special."Dr. Rodriquez calculates a correlation coefficient (r) to examine the relationship between Question 1 and Question 2 and between Question 1 and Question 3. She finds a correlation coefficient of r = -0.73 between Questions 1 and 2 and a correlation coefficient of r = 0.74 between Questions 1 and 3. Which of the following is true of her findings?
There appears to be good internal reliability in the scale
Dr. Sheffield is a clinical psychologist who specializes in treating pathological gambling. Pathological gambling is defined as being unable to resist impulses to gamble. Bothered by not having a good measure that he can give to clients to determine whether they are suffering from this condition, he creates a new measure of pathological gambling. The measure has 15 questions, and it takes 20 minutes to complete. 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?
To obtain evidence for criterion validity
Dr. Kushner is planning on conducting a study next semester. He is curious as to whether sleep deprivation is associated with poorer cognitive performance. For example, if you sleep poorly the night before a big exam, will you do worse? Dr. Kushner is especially curious about selective sleep deprivation, where people are kept from entering REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. Using an electroencephalograph (EEG) to monitor brain waves, he plans to let participants sleep until they enter REM sleep and then wake them. After the participants are awake for one minute, Dr. Kushner plans to let them return to sleep. As they enter REM sleep again, he will wake them again and follow the same procedure. He plans to do this through the entire eight-hour sleep session. The following morning, participants will be asked to take a sample SAT test. To address the Belmont principle of beneficence, Dr. Kushner would need to ask which of the following questions?
What can I do to decrease the potential harm experienced by my participants?
The principle of justice calls for a balance between
the kind of people who participate in research; the kind of people who benefit from it
