Research Methods Exam 1: Reading Quizzes

Which of the following is a potential problem with the method of authority as a method of inquiry?

A person may claim to be an expert when they really are not An "expert" answer may only be a personal, subjective opinion An expert may be giving answers outside of their area of expertise

Prior to the end of WWII, guidelines for research ethics were established

There were no guidelines. Individual researchers were presumed to establish their own ethical guidelines

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 non humorous sentences. The participants presented with the humorous sentences are all males. The participants presented with the non humorous sentences are all females. What threat to internal validity is present in this study?

assignment bias

Counting the number of people who smile at a baby in a stroller as they pass by is an example of a ____ measure.

behavioral

The workers in a factory are organized into 5-person teams. When conducting a work-environment survey, a researcher randomly selected 10 teams to obtain a total sample of 50 workers. The researcher used:

cluster sampling

A researcher designs a study to determine whether female preschoolers prefer sweetened or unsweetened cereal. The researcher uses a box of sweetened colorful cereal and a box of unsweetened tan colored cereal. The researcher finds that the group of preschoolers ate more of the sweetened colorful cereal and therefore prefers the sweetened cereal. Which two variables are *confounded* in this experiment?

color of the cereal and sweetness of the cereal

Which type of validity requires multiple research studies, usually conducted over a long period of time?

construct

A researcher who obtains a sample of preschool children by going to the local daycare until she finds enough children whose parents give consent is using:

convenience sampling

A study addressing how many cigarettes a week are smoked by adolescents at a high school is an example of what research approach?

descriptive

Which situation illustrates the use of a nominal scale of measurement?

employees of a company are classified as production 1 or production 2 workers

A researcher is concerned that experimental results obtained with college students may not apply to adults in the general population. This study has a problem with:

external validity

A(n) ___ variable is a variable in a study that is not being directly studied.

extraneous

The Tuskegee study involved

failing to provide treatment to men with syphilis

The Nuremberg Code was developed

following war crimes trials after WWII in the 1940s

A research study has ____ if it produces a single, unambiguous explanation for the results.

internal validity

In a study with a group of individuals being tested over time, factors such as outside events (history) or practice threaten:

internal validity

The advantage of using an operational definition is:

it guarantees that other researchers will know exactly how you defined and measured your variables

Confederates in a study are

people who pretend to be participants

An EEG, heart rate, and brain activity are all examples of ______ measures.

physiological

The textbook describes a study by Menzies & Lane (2012), in which the researchers asked whether student scores on a Student Risk Screening Scale were related to teacher ratings of student self-control. The purpose of this study was to establish _____ validity for the test.

predictive

A measurement procedure is reliable if it

produces measurements that are stable and consistent

Rebecca is interested in what types of experiences college students consider to be sexually coercive/unwanted behaviors. She interviews 50 college students at her school and asks them to recall a time in which they felt coerced into a sexual activity, and how they felt about it. Looking at her data, Rebecca starts to identify themes in student responses, and writes up a narrative report of her findings. Rebecca's approach is an example of:

qualitative research

A researcher is conducting a state-wide political poll one week before the election. She decides to find equal numbers of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. She does not have a complete list of registered voters, but seeks out participants until she gets the right proportion. What kind of sampling is being used?

quota

Which of the following is not an example of probability sampling?

quota sampling

Determining a person's reaction time (in milliseconds) would involve measurement on a(n) _____ scale of measurement.

ratio

Participants may modify their natural behavior as a result of being in a study. This describes ______ as a threat to ______.

reactivity; internal and external validity

The names of all the students in a class are listed on separate pieces of paper. The teacher places all the boys' names in one hat, all the girls' names in another hat and mixes them thoroughly before reaching in to draw out five names from each hat The teaching is using:

stratified random sampling

One way to detect fraud in research is to:

submit the article for peer review

The group of individuals from which researchers actually select participants for research studies is called:

the accessible population

One criticism of a stratified random sample is:

the overall composition of the sample may over represent small segments of the population

Passive deception refers to

withholding information from participants

What is Hypothesis B better than Hypothesis A? Hypothesis A: There will be no association between number of friends one has on Facebook and GPA. Hypothesis B: The more friends people have on Facebook, the lower their GPA/

Hypothesis B is worded positively

Based on observations of his own children, Jean Piaget formed a general hypothesis about the cognitive development of all children. His hypothesis is an example of:

Inductive Reasoning

The mode of inquiry that is called the method of faith is a variant of which method of inquiry?

Method of Authority

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?

Method of Empiricism

A student who believes that his performance on tests is influenced by wearing a lucky hat is using which method of inquiry?

Tenacity

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

There would be less racial tension today if Abraham Lincoln had not been assassinated

Under which of the following circumstances is informed consent not necessary?

a public opinion study where participants complete anonymous questionnaires on innocuous topics

Experiments allow researchers to:

answer cause-and-effect questions about the relationship between two variables

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

convenience sampling

A researcher is measuring social skills for pre-school children by observing their behavior during a play period. However, the researcher is concerned about the validity of the observational measure, so a questionnaire is sent home to each child's parents to obtain a second measure of social skill. The two measures are then compared to make sure that they agree. This is an example of establishing:

convergent validity

Which of the following would not be an example of plagiarism?

copying someone else's words but using quotes and giving them credit with a citation

A research study measures Facebook use and happiness for each participant. The study intends to determine whether there is a relationship between the two variables. The study is best characterized as _____ research.

correlational

Which of the following forms of deception is not permitted?

not telling participants about a possible risk in the study

What additional information is provided by measurements on an ordinal scale that is not provided by measurements from a nominal scale?

of two different measurements, which is the larger score

In the steps outlined for how scientific investigation works, reporting results is followed by:

refining or reformulating the research idea

When a sample has the same characteristics as the target population, the sample is said to be a(n):

representative sample

The Institutional Review Board (IRB) is responsible for reviewing

research involving human participants

A researcher is interested in the eating behavior of rats and selects a group of 25 rats to be tested in a research study. The group of 25 rats is a ____.

sample

A problem with the rational method of knowing for acquiring knowledge is that:

you may not have a complete set of premise statements you may not be very good at combining premise statements to produce a valid conclusion one or more of your premise statements may be incorrect