Research Methods Final

What is an operational definition?

A definition of a variable in terms of precisely how it is to be measured.

Correlations are usually illustrated by using a graph known as

A scatterplot

Researchers should use a correlational study if

All of the answers are correct

Which of the following is a reason for taking a Research Methods course?

All of the answers are correct

A scientific hypothesis is

All of the answers are correct.

Which of the following empirical questions is most likely to be answered by a measure using a nominal scale of measurement?

Are psychology majors or biology majors more likely to be Democrats?

An example of pseudoscience is

Astrology

An in-depth study of one or a small number of unique individuals, groups, social settings or events is called

Case study

Sex, occupation and nationality are

Categorical variables

_____ designs are for studying individuals of different ages at the same time and _____ designs are for studying the same people over a period of time.

Cross-sectional; longitudinal

What are two of the main reasons that "correlation does not imply causation"?

Directionality problem and third-variable problem

Which of the following questions is not falsifiable?

Does Bigfoot exist?

One of the concerns about disguised vs undisguised observation methods is

Ecological validity

_______________ questions are questions that can be answered through systematic observation.

Empirical

If we include items assessing memory, logic, and verbal comprehension on an intelligence test - as opposed to food preferences or shoe size - then we have satisfied which of the following types of validity?

Face

Characteristics of a relationship between variables that can be indicated in a scatterplot include

Form, direction, and strength

One of the strengths of a structured observation is

Greater control over extraneous variables

Which of the following would NOT be considered a psychological construct?

Heart Rate

Which of the following is a disadvantage of the intuitive approach to acquiring knowledge?

Intuition does not provide a mechanism to help you to separate accurate from inaccurate knowledge.

Which of the following illustrates reliability?

Jacquie takes three practice GRE verbal exams and scores 300, 299, and 301.

___________ is the assignment of symbols or numbers to something according to a set of rules.

Measurement

Correlational data about people's behavior can be collected using

Naturalistic observations or archival data

______________ observation is done in the real world, while ______________ observation is done in a controlled environment.

Naturalistic; laboratory

Literacy is correlated with recividism rates in that prisoners with better reading skills are less likely to reoffend. This represents a __________________ correlation.

Negative

A researcher is assigning participants to categories by occupation. Which level of measurement is he using?

Nominal level

In a psychological experiment, participants are put into either a happy or a sad mood by having them look at short videos of either an uplifting or depressing nature. They are then asked to rate pictures of people on their attractiveness. What is the dependent variable?

Perception of attractiveness

One electronic bibliographic database that is devoted to psychological research is

PsycINFO

_____ sampling is a sampling technique that involves ensuring that the sample is like the population on certain characteristics but uses convenience sampling to obtain the participants.

Quota

Participants' weight is measured in kilograms. This is an example of which level of measurement?

Ratio level

______________ refers to the consistency of results and ____________ is the extent to which you are measuring what you think you are measuring.

Reliability; validity

Reliability refers to...

The consistency of a measure

Expectancy effects are

The influence of the researcher's expectations on the outcome of the study

What is participant observation?

The researcher becomes an active participant in a situation in the group or situation they are is studying.

Which term describes the extent to which the scores from a measure represent the variable they are intended to?

Validity

Which of the following is NOT a type of central tendency?

Variance

Below are four examples of research problems. According to principles of feasibility and interest, which is a good research problem?

What is the relation between drug therapy and depression symptoms?

The difference between participant and non-participant observation is

Whether or not the researcher interacts with the participants

Of the following questions, only one is an empirical question and can be tested. Which one?

Will males or females be more likely to give blood?

All of the following are associated with pseudoscience except

a deliberate attempt is made to associate the pseudoscience with some normal scientific work

"Students who use mental imagery to study for an exam will do better than those who do not." This sentence is an example of

a directional hypothesis.

A "theory" is best defined as

a group of statements that explains how and why something works and makes predictions.

The relationship between a statistic and a sample is the same as the relationship between

a parameter and a population.

The _____ indicates the magnitude of a correlation coefficient.

absolute value

What is true about random assignment?

all of the answers are correct

Which of the following is NOT a type of measure?

an operational definition

By utilizing __________, keeping participant's identity unknown, we are also keeping their information __________ because we are unable to reveal information connected to the participant.

anonymity; confidential

When Stella finished graduate school, she wants to conduct research that can be used immediately in order to improve the lives of others. Stella is most interested in ____ research.

applied

A(n) ________ study is one that focuses on a practical problem, like effective therapies to treat PTSD. A(n) _______ study is one that focuses on a question of interest that may not have practical implications, like the types of music people like most.

applied; basic

When you buy a cola product because a famous sports figure tells you in advertisements that it's refreshing, you are gathering knowledge about the product through which technique?

auhority

If you accept your physician's explanation for your illness without researching your condition or asking how she came to her conclusion, you are relying on __________ as a source of knowledge.

authority

Why are psychological theories often a good source for research ideas?

because theories often make specific predictions about relationships among variables that must then be tested empirically

A correlation coefficient of _____ indicates that the variables form a perfect linear relationship.

both +1.00 and -1.00

Jim thought that the strong negative correlation that he observed between depression and self-esteem meant that having a low self-esteem led to high levels of depression. Jim is misinterpreting the correlation by assuming

both causality and directionality.

Questions for which participants choose from a limited number of alternatives are _____ questions.

closed-ended

Billie randomly selected 20 nursing classes then randomly selected 10 students from each of those classes to participate in a study about CPR learning. Billie used a _____________________ sampling technique.

cluster

The _____ is a measure of the proportion of variance in one of the variables that is accounted for by the other variable.

coefficient of determination

The three main goals of science are to

describe, predict and explain

Statistical methods that organize, summarize, or simplify data are called _________.

descriptive statistics

The primary reason for doing a literature review is to

determine the current state of knowledge in the area.

Sometimes it is impossible to "inform" the participant fully at the beginning of an experiment because

disclosing all information about the experiment might influence participants' behavior and invalidate the experiment.

Which of the following would not be considered a field experiment?

effects of music on laboratory memory performance among introductory psychology students

When we can generalize from the sample used in a study to the population of interest we say that the study has _____ validity.

external

A researcher is interested in the effects of teaching styles on learning. She randomly assigns students to either a lecture-based class taught at 8:00 a.m. or a discussion-based class taught at 2:00 p.m. Her results reveal that students in the discussion-based class performed better than those in the lecture-based class. In this example the time that the class is taught could be considered a(n) _________ variable, making it impossible to establish a causal connection between teaching method and classroom performance.

extraneous

The _________ variable is the presumed cause of another variable while the ________ variable is the presumed effect.

independent; dependent

Although it has been shown to be useful in research, fundamentally deception violates which APA standard?

informed consent

Jacqueline wanted to assess the reliability of ratings made of children's aggressive behavior so she had two students rate the degree of aggression displayed by each of 50 children while engaged in play. She then compared the ratings made by these two students and computed the degree of agreement between them. Jacqueline used what method of assessing reliability?

interrater reliability

When a survey item implies a preferred response within the wording of the question itself it is called a

leading question.

In the context of survey questions, an emotionally laden term is called

loaded.

All institutions (e.g., universities) that receive federal funds for research must have an Institutional Review Board (IRB). The job of this group is to

make judgments regarding the ethical acceptability of research involving human participants.

The __________ is the most frequent score in the distribution.

mode

A psychological study finds the following correlational effect: The more students feel under pressure to complete their homework successfully and on time, the more they procrastinate. This is a...

not negative relationship

Questions for which participants formulate their own responses are _____ questions.

open-ended

A Pearson correlation of r = +0.95 indicates that a graph of the data would show ___.

points clustered close to a line that slopes up to the right

A researcher uses an anonymous survey to investigate the study habits of American college students. The entire group of American college students is an example of a _________.

population

Research misconduct includes all of the following. Which is considered to be the most serious?

presenting fraudulent results

Research hypotheses must be stated in a way such hat the research is capable of producing results that do not support the hypothesis. This characteristic of the research hypothesis is called the

principle of falsifiability

When studying a specific clinical population, one would use a _______________ sampling technique.

purposive

Height, SAT scores and age are ___________________ variables, whereas sex, occupation and nationality are _________________ variables,

quantitative; categorical

In order to generate a sample of students from her institution, Julie selected every 10th name off of the registrar's alphabetical list of all students enrolled at her school. Julie is using the _____ sampling technique.

random

The percentage of individuals selected to be in the sample who actually participate in the study is known as

response rate.

General State University recently decided to discontinue its use of the GRE as an admissions tool for its graduate programs because they observed no correlation between GRE scores and subsequent GPAs. Ninety percent of the grades awarded in the graduate programs at General State University are A's. What General State has failed to consider in this situation is the issue of

restrictive range.

After you have developed a research idea, the next step is to

review the literature.

Although a research study is typically conducted with a relatively small group of participants known as a ________, most researchers hope to generalize their results to a much larger group known as a ________.

sample; population

Inferential statistics involve the use of _____________ to draw conclusions about ________________.

samples; populations

Which of the following is the most valid way to gather information?

science

A variable shows reliability when

similar results are obtained each time it is measured.

Marnie keeps answering the questions on the survey she is taking as she thinks most others in society would answer them, rather than with her true responses. Marnie's answers illustrate

socially desirable responses.

A research problem states the issue to be studied in question form. A scientific hypothesis

states the predicted relationship between/among variables.

The use of descriptive statistics involves

summarizing your data so that it is easier for others to understand.

The scientific approach involves using

systematic empiricism, public verification, and solvable problems.

Dr. Smarsh creates a new intelligence test and wants to assess its reliablility. She administers her test to the same sample of individuals on two separate occasions one week apart. What type of reliability is Dr. Smarsh using?

test retest reliability

Which of the following is probably the major concern about internet resources in exploring your research idea?

the accuracy of information at some Web sites

In a study designed to identify factors involved in helping behavior, a man on a crowded bus clutches his chest and falls to the floor. In one of the conditions of the study the man is clean shaven and wearing a suit; in the other condition he has a scraggly beard and is wearing a dirty t-shirt and jeans. The amount of time it takes for someone to help the man is recorded. In this example the independent variable is

the appearance of the man.

In a standard normal distribution,

the scores pile up in the middle and taper off symmetrically to both sides.

The problem of a correlation between two variables being dependent on another variable is called

the third variable problem.

For psychologists especially, ethical concerns can be divided into three areas. Which of the following is not one of those?

the ultimate importance of gaining knowledge

Which of the following statements would you be least likely to find in an informed consent form?

there is no penalty for not starting the study, but once you begin, you are obligated to complete the session

Studies in which the participants are aware that the researcher is observing their behavior utilize _____ observation and studies in which the researcher does not participate in the situation in which the research participants are involved utilize _____ observation.

undisguised; nonparticipant

Which of the following is NOT true in reference to writing survey items to match research objectives?

use technical language that is specific to the construct that you are researching

What is the primary weakness of a correlational study?

we cannot establish cause and effect with a correlational study