Research Methods Exam 2

How do reverse-worded items address shortcuts?

They slow down readers, making them answer more carefully

Establishing construct validity would probably be most important for which of the following?

A measure of spirituality

Which of the following is a good reason a researcher may give for using observational methods as opposed to self-report methods?

"I want to measure something that people may not know how often they do it."

What is the primary difference between a categorical and a quantitative variable?

Categorical variables are categories (for example: age, sex, etc.). Quantitative variables are meaningful numbers in a study.

A researcher wants to know what people really do, not what they think they do. Which method would you advise him to use?

behavioral observations

Which of the following is a unique threat to construct validity found only in behavioral observation?

observer bias

RESEARCH STUDY 5.1 (see question 22 for full vignette) 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

RESEARCH STUDY 5.1 (Questions 22-24): 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, "I tend not to think about other people as much as I think about myself." Question 2 reads, "I do not have a high opinion of myself." Question 3 reads, "I 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

When using correlation coefficients to evaluate reliability, which of the following is undesirable?

It depends on the type of reliability being evaluated

RESEARCH STUDY 4.1 (see Question 9 for full vignette) 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

Hosea is studying the relationship between caffeine consumption and problem-solving ability. Which of the following is a categorical way to operationalize caffeine consumption?

Whether the participant drank a soda in the 24 hours prior to the study

Content validity

measure contains all parts that your theory says it should contain

Convergent validity

measure correlates strognly with other measures of the same construct

Discriminant validity

measure does not correlate with measures of different constructs

Criterion validity

measure is related to a concrete outsome that it should be related to

What is the term for a researcher's definition of the variable in question at a theoretical level?

Conceptual definition

All of the following are types of Qualitative interviews EXCEPT:

Experimental debriefing interview

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

Define the Belmont principle of respect for persons. Please include the three personal rights protected by this principle. (+1 points if you can identify the primary procedural aspect of most research that is associated with this principle. Your score cannot exceed 15 pts).

..

Which of the following studies would probably require written informed consent?

A confidential study examining income level and voting behavior

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

Which of the following is NOT an example of coercion?

A researcher offering three points of extra credit to college students to participate in a study

In which of the following studies is self-report the best data collection option?

A study examining the intensity of pain during natural childbirth

A correlation-based statistic called _____________ is commonly used to determine internal reliability.

Cronbach's alpha

An educational psychologist wants to make sure his measure of verbal learning is valid. He theorizes that his measure should not be strongly related to numerical learning (a different construct) and plans to test this using a correlation coefficient. Which of the following validitities is he concerned with?

Discriminant validity

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 concerneed that Julian's participants will try to fake good

All of the following are true of institutional review boards (IRBs) in the United States EXCEPT:

IRBs must have a psychologist as a member

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

If a measure is valid, it is also reliable

There are three types of quantitative variables, specifically, ordinal scale, interval scale, and ratio scale. Define these variable types. Please include the two defining factors for each interval and ratio scale variables.

In interval scales, there is no "true zero" meaning zero doesn't actually mean zero (for example: on an IQ test, a score of zero doesn't mean the person has no intelligence). Interval scales also have equal intervals between values. There is also equal intervals in ratio scales but in this type of scale, zero does mean nothing or has no value (for example: you could get a zero as your score on an exam). Ordinal scales include rankings (for example: 1st place, 2nd place, etc.) There isn't necessarily equal intervals.

RESEARCH STUDY 5.1 (see question 22 for full vignette) 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

In his 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 have never not enjoyed thinking." What is the problem with this question?

It has a double-negative

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 true of behavioral observation?

It may tell a different story than data collected by self-report questions

For his research methods class, Felipe plans to watch how students treat other children in their classrooms who have attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). He will evaluate how positively or negatively the children are treated by their classmates. This is an example of what type of measurement?

Observational measurement

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

List at least 3 ways that Qualitative research data collection (interviews, observations, etc.) may differ from Quantitative research data collection.

Qualitative research data collection is more open-ended. The questions are more natural as well as how the study is run in general. In qualitative data, the way questions are generated is also different, it is less scripted.

For her research methods class, Serena plans to interview several teachers about their attitude toward teaching children who have attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This is an example of what type of measurement?

Self-report measurement

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

In addition to the three principles derived from the Belmont Report, which of the following two principles were added in the principles put forth by the American Psychological Association?

The principle of integrity and fidelity/responsibility

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

RESEARCH STUDY 4.1 (Questions 9 and 10): 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

Jen 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

Which of the following is NOT a way to deal with reactivity?

Using multiple observers

Face validity

the measure appears to measure the construct of interest