methods of experimental psychology final
Your friend Gaby loves reading articles about psychology studies in her monthly women's magazine. Which of the following would you tell her?
"Be careful about reading those articles because they may not present findings accurately."
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."
Which of the following phrases might a person encounter in a popular media article that indicates an interaction?
"it depends"
How many participant variables exist in Dr. Singh's study?
0
Dr. Gavin is conducting a 2 × 4 independent-groups factorial design. How many interactions will Dr. Gavin need to examine?
1
What are the marginal means for memory technique?
10.5 and 18
If a study describes the "difference in differences," what is the minimum number of variables the researchers were studying?
2
Dr. Gavin is conducting a 2 × 4 independent-groups factorial design. How many cells are in his design?
8
Dr. Reyes is examining whether exercise is linked to positive moods. She recruits a sample of college students and asks them to answer whether they exercised at least three times last week (yes or no) and to rate their mood in the last week (1: Not happy at all to 5: Very happy). If Dr. Reyes wants to present her data on a figure, which of the following figures should she use?
A bar graph with exercise on the X-axis and mood on the Y-axis
A change to which of the following cells will result in a different interpretation of the results of subliminal messages?
A change in any cell will result in a different interpretation.
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 possible?
A measure is valid but not reliable
Which of the following could be said of the focus of activity variable in Dr. Singh's study?
A proper statistical test would be necessary to determine the effect of the focus of activity variable.
Imagine that Dr. Kushner is a clinical psychologist who volunteers his time at a local prison counseling several inmates. Because of his connections there, he is considering using prisoners as his participants. Why is this choice potentially problematic?
According to the Belmont Report, prisoners are entitled to special protection.
Which of the following is true about large effect sizes in an association claim?
All else being equal, there will be greater likelihood of a finding being important in the real world.
Dr. Navarro conducted a study investigating whether exercising immediately before an exam boosted cognitive abilities. She randomly assigned participants to either do jumping jacks or count to 60 before giving them a geometry test. She did not find any differences between groups but believes there may have been a ceiling effect. What might be a clue that this was the case?
All participants' scores are centered around 100% correct.
Students who are interested in being consumers of, but not producers of, research might choose which of the following professions?
An advertising executive
Which of the following has been used as a defense of animal research by animal researchers?
Animal research has resulted in many benefits to both animals and humans
A group of students recorded the amount of time they studied for an exam in their research methods course and the grade they received on the exam. The scatter plot shows a positive, linear relationship. What statement best describes this relationship between time spent studying and exam grade?
As study time increased, exam grades increased
What is the difference between advice from an authority and that from a researcher?
Authorities often base their advice on intuition, while researchers rely on facts.
How are quota sampling and stratified random sampling similar?
Both identify subgroups that need to be studied.
In which of the following ways are content and face validity similar?
Both involve subjective judgments.
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.
You read a news article about a recent scientific study titled, "New Drug Reduces OCD Symptoms in Mice." To evaluate whether the title's claim is supported, you should do which of the following?
Check whether the authors established the three criteria for a causal claim.
Which of the following is true of control variables?
Control variables are kept the same for all participants
Jiyun has just conducted a study examining the association between a child's level of impulsivity and the amount of corporal punishment used by their parents. She used a questionnaire about discipline strategies to assess corporal punishment. She calculated the scale's internal reliability as .85 and concluded that her scale had good internal reliability. Jiyun most likely calculated reliability using what statistic?
Cronbach's alpha
Articles that could be considered journalism
Do not require specialized education to read
Tim tells you that the best way to make friends is by opening the conversation with a joke. He can easily recall all the friends he met by telling a joke and also the times he opened with chitchat and didn't befriend the person. You are concerned that Tim is making the blind spot bias. As a researcher, what would you most likely ask him to consider?
Do you think that you should test this out by opening some conversations with a joke and some conversations with chitchat?
In graphing the results of her study, which of the following would be true for Dr. Singh?
Dr. Singh would see a difference in differences for one variable but not the other variable.
Why might a researcher choose purposive sampling over systematic sampling?
External validity is not vital to the researcher's study.
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 owners by e-mailing members of the National Bird Owners Association and asking for participants.
Elliott is double majoring in English and psychology. He plans on being a high school English teacher and is majoring in psychology only because he finds the classes interesting. Which of the following is an important reason for him to be a good consumer of research?
He will probably want to read research related to enhancing his teaching.
You and your friends go to see a speaker on campus. The speaker, Dr. Darian, is an "expert" on getting into graduate school. Which of the following should make you less skeptical about his advice?
His recommendations are based on research he conducted for his dissertation.
In Introduction to Neuroscience, 43 of 50 students complete the survey, and in Psychology and Law, 46 of 48 students complete the survey. Based on this information, which of the following can Dr. Kramer say?
His sample came from his population of interest.
Dr. Kline, an environmental psychologist, conducts a study to examine whether visiting zoos causes people to have more positive attitudes toward environmental conservation. He asks a group of 45 people attending the zoo on a Saturday morning about their attitudes. He finds that 69% of the people report having a positive attitude after their visit. Which of the following is true?
His study does not qualify as an experiment
When interrogating the construct validity of an association claim, which of the following statements is true?
How each variable was measured must be considered.
In evaluating Dr. Guidry's study, you question the construct validity of the study. Which of the following questions would you be asking?
How reliable is the measure of daily stress?
Which of the following is true of the relationship between hypotheses and theories?
Hypotheses are used to determine if a theory is accurate.
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.
All of the following are true of institutional review boards (IRBs) in the United States EXCEPT tha
IRBs must have a psychologist as a member
The ethical principles that govern psychological research and the code of conduct for how to protect human and nonhuman participants in research are published by the
Institutional Review Board
Which of the following is true of 95% CIs?
It deals with precision estimates about the population.
Which of the following is true of probability sampling?
It is the best way to obtain a representative sample
Why is the use of representative samples especially important in frequency claims?
It is unlikely that the accuracy of estimates can be checked
Compared with doing a generic internet search, why is PsycINFO a superior way to find scientific sources?
It searches only sources in psychology and related fields
Why is it unethical to provide an incentive that is too large to refuse (for example, offering undergraduate students free tuition for a semester for participating in a study)?
It unduly influences people into participating.
Martin has found a correlation of r =.18 between the two variables of using prescription stimulants (e.g., Adderall) and frontal lobe activity. This correlation is more likely to be statistically significant if
Martin used a larger number of subjects.
What is the relationship between moderators and external validity?
Moderators suggest that associations may not generalize to all subgroups of people.
Which of these statements would most likely be used by a research psychologist when describing the results of a study?
My data are consistent with my hypothesis.
Scientific journals and magazines are similar in which of the following ways?
New editions come out on a regular basis (usually monthly)
Dr. Reyes is examining whether exercise is linked to mood. She recruits a sample of college students and asks them to answer whether they exercised at least three times last week (yes or no) and to rate their mood in the last week (1: Not happy at all to 5: Very happy). Her results show that students who exercised in the last week also reported happier moods. Can Dr. Reyes make a causal inference from her study? Select the best explanation for the response.
No, Dr. Reyes's study meets only one the three causal criteria: covariance.
Dr. Kushner plans to use deception in his study and is thinking about a debriefing session. Which of the following is true of the debriefing?
Participants must be told the reasons for the deception
Why would behavioral observation be a good research method for studying a high-frequency behavior (e.g., number of words spoken in a day or number of steps taken in a week)?
Participants would not be able to accurately keep track of so much data.
Zariah placed five identical pairs of black socks on a table and asked passersby to rate which pair of socks were their favorites. Although the socks were exactly the same, people rated the last pair of socks as having the highest quality. How should Zariah interpret this result?
People are not always able to accurately explain their responses
Which of the following conclusions can Dr. Guidry draw about the number of friends one has and life satisfaction based on her statistical analyses?
People with more friends tend to report greater life satisfaction
Which of the following is a limitation of PsycINFO compared to Google Scholar?
PsycINFO is not free to use.
Which of the following statements is true of random assignment and random sampling?
Random assignment is necessary for internal validity, whereas random sampling is necessary for external validity.
Why is it important for researchers to replicate a study?
Replicating a study gives the researcher additional estimates of the association
Why are convergent and discriminant validity often evaluated together?
Researchers have to look at the patterns of correlations for both types of validity
Which of the following is an example of convenience sampling?
Researchers recruited participants from online websites, such as Prolific Academic
Which of the following is a benefit of the peer-review process?
Reviewers' names are kept anonymous so they can be open in their critiques of an article.
Which of the following is true of operational definitions?
Some psychological concepts are more difficult to operationally define than others
Which of the following is true of variables?
Some variables can be either manipulated or measured.
Which of the following is true about research using surveys and polls?
Surveys and polls can efficiently measure people's subjective feelings
Which of the following is a reasonable causal claim?
Texting while driving reduces impulse control
Considering Dr. Guidry's sample, which of the following statements is true?
The association found in her study could probably generalize to elderly people in other large cities in the South.
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.
Dr. Rhodes notices an interaction in his factorial study. In describing this, which statement might he use to explain the link between Independent Variable A and Independent Variable B in predicting the dependent variable?
The effect of Variable A depends on Variable B.
You read an article that states, "How well you remember different types of information depends on the context in which you learned them." Based on this information, what else is true about this study?
The influence of context on memory depends on the type of information presented
You read an article that states, "How well you remember different types of information depends on the context in which you learned them." Based on this information, what else is true about this study?
The influence of context on memory depends on the type of information presented.
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 statement would an animal researcher most likely agree with?
The use of animals in research is justified by the knowledge that is gained from the research
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
Which of the following is an advantage of within-groups designs?
These designs rely on fewer participants.
Dr. Guidry creates a scatterplot of the relationship between the experience of daily stress and life satisfaction. In doing so, she realizes there are three scores that seem to be very extreme and are nowhere near the other points on the scatterplot. Specifically, it appears that three people report very high levels of daily stress and very low levels of life satisfaction. Which of the following statements is true?
These scores are less likely to have an effect because of the large sample size
Why are factorial designs useful in testing theories?
They allow researchers to understand the nuances of how variables interact
Which of the following correctly explains the relationship between a moderator and a spurious association?
They are different: A moderator indicates the association is not spurious
Which of the following is true of moderators?
They can inform external validity.
Which of the following is a primary reason that psychologists might fabricate or falsify their data?
They feel pressure to publish findings
Why is it important for studies with null results to be published?
They push researchers to revise existing theories
A study finds that exercise improves concentration, especially for students who took a yoga class as opposed to step aerobics. Which of the following statements can we infer about the study based on this finding?
This was a within-group study.
Dr. Price conducted a study on how toddlers learn their colors. She thinks that the place where the toddlers are asked about colors and the objects they play with while learning the colors will affect the outcome. She wrote this in the results section: "Analyses indicated significant main effects of place and object. However, the place ×object interaction was not significant. This latter finding suggests that the benefit of using puzzle pieces to learn about colors is not dependent on where the puzzle is completed." Given this excerpt, which of the following statements could also be found in the paper?
Toddlers talked more about colors in the living room
The study that found that two-thirds of Americans had experienced at least one adverse childhood experience (ACE) did not use a random sample. What conclusion should you make about the results of the study?
We are uncertain about the generalizability of the results
Which of the following is a problem presented by the availability heuristic?
We do not examine all of the evidence, only what we can quickly think of.
When examining an association in which one variable is categorical and one is quantitative, which of the following is most likely to be used?
a bar graph
Which of the following graph formats is the best way to examine an association claim between a categorical variable and a quantitative variable?
a bar graph
Translational research is best thought of as ________ basic research and applied research
a bridge between
Which of the following is Dr. Ewell likely to give to his research assistants to prevent observer bias?
a codebook
Which of the following is never found in a one-group, pretest/posttest design?
a comparison group
A psychiatrist is testing a drug that treats depression. He has given the drug to all his patients, and all of them have experienced a decrease in depressive symptoms. Although this is interesting, his experience is limited because he does not have
a comparison group that did not receive the drug
The mathematical way to describe an interaction is
a difference in differences
When examining an association claim using a bar graph, an association is indicated by which of the following?
a difference in the height between the bars
What is the problem with being swayed by a good story?
a good story may not be supported by data
Considering a measure's face validity is
a good way to interrogate the construct validity of the dependent variable
When a double-blind study is not possible, an acceptable alternative may be
a masked design
In Dr. Lonsbary's study, which of the following is NOT present?
a placebo group
Which of the following is an example of translational research?
a sports psychologist who uses information on how we emotionally process victory to design an intervention for improving mental stamina during athletic performance
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
Which of the following studies would benefit the most from a replication study?
a study with a small sample size
Benjamin is a social psychologist who studies marriage. He believes that marital satisfaction has two components: the ability to trust one's partner and a belief that one can be a good spouse. This is known as
a theory
Deci and Ryan's general statement of how the three needs are related to growth and fulfillment is an example of which of the following?
a theory
When reading an empirical journal article "with a purpose,"which section should you read first?
abstract
Which of the following is the first section of an empirical journal article?
abstract
Which of the following is an example of being a producer of research?
administering an anxiety questionnaire
Both PsycINFO and Google Scholar
allow you to identify journal articles on a specific topic
Establishing construct validity is most important for which of the following?
an abstract concept
What is the best description of a peer-reviewed journal article?
an article written by experts and reviewed by other professionals in the same field of study
Which of the following statements is an operational definition of "fear of snakes" that could be assessed as a structured question?
asking, "On a scale of 1 to 10, how afraid of snakes are you?"
Dr. Granger notices that 20 students in their longitudinal study of 100 college students dropped out of the experiment over time. When they look at the missing data, they discover that those 20 students had significantly lower pretest scores than the 80 with complete data. Which type of threat is this an example of?
attrition
Ethical decision making is
based on a balance of priorities.
Research that is done specifically to add to our general understanding of psychology, like distinguishing the components of extraversion or predicting the time it takes a person to determine whether an object is a face or another object, is known as
basic research
After reading the chapter, Cyril says to himself, "I am sure other people might engage in faulty thinking, but I never would." What is Cyril experiencing?
bias blind spot
Science journalists have argued that cigarette smoking leads to a variety of health problems. What type of claim are they making?
causal
The difference between a cluster sample and a stratified random sample is
cluster samples use randomly selected clusters; stratified random samples use predetermined strata
What is the term for a researcher's definition of the variable in question at a theoretical level?
conceptual definition
Dr. Alfonse, a developmental psychologist, conducts a study to determine whether children prefer books with drawn illustrations or with photographs. A group of 30 preschoolers are shown two copies of a book (Ferdinand the Bull) at the same time. Although the story is the same, one book is illustrated with drawings and the other is illustrated with photos. Students are then asked to indicate which book they prefer. This is an example of which of the following designs?
concurrent-measures design
If researchers measure every member of a population, they have
conducted a census
Kalilah just read a story in the most recent issue of Psychology Today that has grabbed her interest. As a thoughtful consumer of information, what should Kalilah do?
consider comparing the media coverage of the story to the original research report
Dr. Lonsbary's study asked participants to report on their mood before completing the memory test. Her decision to include this step was done to address the study's ________ validity.
construct
If a person is asking whether the variables in an association claim are measured appropriately, what is being interrogated?
construct validity
What is the most common sampling technique in behavioral research?
convenience sampling
In this study, estrogen levels in participants were the
data
Upon receiving institutional review board (IRB) approval, Dr. Kushner trusts that his graduate student will conduct the study. However, his graduate student does not conduct the study and instead provides Dr. Kushner with invented results that support his hypotheses. This is known as which of the following?
data fabrication
Dr. Dormeur was concerned that asking participants how long it took them to fall asleep would lead them to suspect that was the purpose of the study. Her decision to measure how long it took participants to go to sleep using the EEG instead of self-report was meant to decrease which of the following?
demand characteristics
Dr. Hamid likely designed his study so that neither he nor his students knew which group they were in to address which of the following?
demand characteristics
Which of the following sections comes last in an empirical journal article?
discussion
The deliberate creation and sharing of information known to be false is
disinformation
Which of Robert Merton's scientific norms describes the idea that scientists should always accurately report the findings of their study even if the findings do not support the scientist's hypotheses or theories?
disinterestedness
Another word for discriminant validity is ________ validity.
divergent
If you are interested in reading an overview of peer-reviewed scientific research within a specific area, which of the following reading sources would you choose?
edited books
The d score is a standardized measure of the degree to which the independent variable caused a change in the dependent variable. This is also known as the
effect size
Considering Dr. Guidry's study, her results could most safely be generalized to which of the following groups?
elderly people
If we cannot observe a behavior, we cannot study it. What does this statement refer to?
empiricism
________ is the approach of collecting data and using it to develop, support, and/or challenge a theory.
empiricism
Which of the following aspects of Dr. Hamid's study allows him to prevent observer bias?
ensuring the person grading the exams is unaware of each student's writing group
The number of main effects that need to be examined is ________ the number of independent variables.
equal to
Unsystematic variability in a study is also known as
error variance
What should Dr. White do next?
evaluate the ways in which her study differed from previous studies that supported this theory
When obtaining informed consent from a participant, what must the researcher do?
explicitly inform participants of any potential risks involved in participating in the study
Dr. Lonsbary is considering doing a follow-up study in which instead of asking participants to listen to music to induce mood, she has them write either a story about a character who just won the lottery or a story about a character who just experienced the death of their spouse. This change in the mood variable is designed to enhance the study's ________ validity.
external
Dr. Rodriquez is concerned about the validity of the measure of narcissism recommended by her colleague. She sends a copy of the measure to the faculty members in her psychology department to look at, and they all tell her it looks like it will measure narcissism. She now has evidence of which of the following?
face validity
If a measurement looks like it is a plausible operationalization of a conceptual variable, then it has
face validity
In the case of a factorial design, another term for independent variable is
factor
Which of the following is most likely to be part of a debriefing?
fully informing participants about all aspects of the study
What does the impact factor of a journal tell you?
how often, on average, papers in that journal have been cited
When you are interrogating the external validity of a sample, which is the most important question to ask?
how was the sample collected?
Dr. Gonzalez is a peer reviewer for a manuscript submitted to a journal. He is likely to provide comments on which of the following?
how well the research was conducted
What type of design did Dr. Lonsbary use in her study?
independent-groups design
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
Generally, what is the main priority for experimental studies?
internal validity
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
Which types of reliability can be analyzed with scatterplots?
interrater reliability and test-retest reliability
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
To test his measure, Dr. Sheffield gives his measure to a group of people in Gamblers Anonymous (GA) and another group of people 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. This procedure is known as a
known-group paradigm
Hannah just finished reading an empirical journal article for a class project. Where should she go if she wants to look for a list of the study's hypotheses or research questions?
last paragraph of the introduction
A question that suggests a particular viewpoint to respondents is known as a(n)
leading question
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
Researchers conducting an experiment can ensure temporal precedence by doing which of the following?
manipulating the cause before measuring the effect
What is a confidence interval constructed around?
margin of error
When participants are sorted from lowest to highest on a variable, grouped into sets of two, and then one person from each set is assigned at random to each of the experimental groups, this is called
matching
Spontaneous remission in clinical studies is an example of which of the following threats to internal validity?
maturation
The addition of a comparison group can address which of the following threats to internal validity?
maturation
A participant's score on a dependent variable is a combination of which of the following?
measurement error and their true score
Which of the following is an example of physiological measurement?
measurements of hormones in the bloodstream
Matthew is reading an empirical journal article and wants to know whether the authors used the Big Five Inventory (BFI-44) or the NEO-PI to measure extraversion. In which section would he find this information?
method
According to the guidelines for interpreting effect sizes, what type of effect size has Dr. Guidry found for the association between number of friends and life satisfaction?
moderate
Dr. Guidry finds that the relationship between the number of friends one has and life satisfaction is stronger for men than for women. In this study, gender (male or female) is considered a(n)
moderator
Dr. Tanaka is an educational psychologist interested in students' attitudes toward science and the effect of those attitudes on performance on standardized tests. He chooses his local school district to study. There are 15 high schools, and he randomly chooses five. Then, of the 2,500 students in each of those five schools, he randomly recruits 250 students. This is an example of which of the following sampling techniques?
multistage sample
Which of the following is another term for response sets?
nondifferentiation
Dr. Guidry has decided to examine one of her relationships with a scatterplot to double-check for a curvilinear relationship. Which relationship will be most important for her to examine?
number of friends one has and experience of daily stress
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 affect
Masked or blind study designs are designed to deal with
observer bias
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 is a dependent variable?
one that is measured
Practice effects and carryover effects are examples of ________ effects.
order
Scientists often say that more data are needed to draw conclusions about the accuracy of new theories and are reluctant to accept new claims without empirical support. What scientific norm does this illustrate?
organized skepticism
A sample is to ________ as a population is to ________.
part; entire
Prior to conducting the current study, Dr. Lonsbary asked her research assistant to use the same mood manipulation with a sample of 30 college students to determine if people's moods really did change after listening to the music. This preliminary study is known as a ________ study.
pilot
The likelihood that a study will return an accurate result when the independent variable really has an effect is called
power
The use of debriefing in a study such as Milgram's obedience study appeals to which principle of the Belmont Report?
principle of beneficence
Which of the questions above is an example of an open-ended question?
question A
Which of the questions above is an example of a question that uses a Likert scale?
question B
Which of the questions above is an example of a question that uses a semantic differential scale?
question D
A researcher most likely prepared two versions of a survey with different question sequencing to address the issue of
question order.
Which of the following does NOT depict a statistically significant association?
r = .26, 95% CI [-.08, .60]
Why are curvilinear relationships hard to detect with correlation coefficients (r)?
r always looks for the best straight line to fit the data.
Dr. Ewell is concerned that the children will behave differently because of the presence of research assistants. He is concerned about
reactivity
A research consumer ________ scientific results.
reads
Imagine that in Dr. Hamid's study, he notes that all of the students do extremely well on the midterm exam. When he looks at the results of the final exam, he notices that all the students' exam scores went down. Given this information, which of the following threats might be present in his study?
regression
Dr. Georgiou wants to help undergraduates overcome homesickness. She gives a survey to 500 undergraduates and picks the 50 who scored the highest on her measure of homesickness to complete her treatment. After three weeks, she tests them again and finds their homesickness scores are significantly lower. Which of the following is a threat to her study?
regression to the mean
Which of the following designs is Dr. Dormeur using?
repeated-measures design
Which of the following increases accurate responding?
reverse-worded questions
Statistical significance depends on which of the following?
sample size and effect size
Angel reads about a study in which smartphone use is associated with migraine headaches. He says, "Well, that study is not valid because I use a smartphone more than anyone I know, and I never get migraines." Based on his comment, Angel may be forgetting which of the following?
science is problematic
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
If a question has response options that are anchored with adjectives, this is known as a(n)
semantic differential format
In a scatterplot, the direction of the relationship can be seen by the
slope of the line
A sample is always ________ a population.
smaller than
Faking good is also known as
socially desirable responding
The phrase "especially for" would be used to describe which of the following results?
spreading interactions
Oversampling is a variant used in which of the following sampling techniques?
stratified random sampling
Dr. Kushner suspects that the people who will most benefit from his study are high school and college students, who are asked to perform cognitive functions in various states of sleep deprivation. Given this information, what type of participants should Dr. Kushner recruit for his study?
students from a community college
Dr. Kramer could reasonably use his sample to say something about which of the following populations of interest?
students who have taken a class with Dr. Kramer
The aim of the Tuskegee Study was to examine which disease?
syphilis
Which of the following results in an unbiased sample?
systematic sample
To be a history threat, the external event must occur
systematically, affecting most members of the group
A threat to internal validity occurs only if a potential design confound varies with the independent variable
systematically.
If Jamal wanted to test the consistency of participants' responses on a survey at two different times, what would he use?
test-retest reliability
Which of the following is a control variable in Dr. Lonsbary's study?
the amount of time allowed for memorizing the words
Quinn's concern is addressing which of the following?
the external validity
Dr. Hadden wants to conduct a study that will allow him to make claims that apply to all college students. Which of the following validities is he prioritizing?
the external validity of the study
A scientist is most likely to accept a theory when
the findings of replicated studies are consistent with the theory
If an association study did not select people for the study by using random sampling, which of the following statements is true?
the findings should be replicated in a different population
An author might use all of the following methods to indicate statistical significance EXCEPT
the inclusion of a graph
Dr. Kang's decision to assign participants randomly to Group A and Group B increases which of the following?
the internal validity of the study
The principle of justice calls for a balance between ________ and ________ .
the kind of people who participate in research; the kind of people who benefit from it
Imagine that you are reading a journal article and you see the following sentence: "The study used a 2 × 2 × 4 design." Based on this sentence alone, you would know which of the following pieces of information?
the number of main effects that need to be examined
What is the primary difference between pretest/posttest designs and within-groups designs?
the number of times the dependent variable is measured
Which of the following is the dependent variable in Dr. Kang's study?
the number of words remembered
Which of the following indicates that a study used a bivariate correlational design?
the presence of two measured variables
James is asked about the best way to study for an exam. He responds that the best way to study is by making flashcards. He easily thinks of all the times he used flashcards and got an A. However, he fails to take into consideration all the times he got an A and did not use flashcards and the times he used flashcards and did not do well. His faulty thinking is an example of
the present/present bias
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 issue of obtaining informed consent deals with which of the following principles of the Belmont Report?
the principle of respect for persons
Dr. Guidry submits her study for publication in a scientific journal. If one of the peer reviewers is concerned about the external validity of her study, which of the following is the most important aspect of Dr. Guidry's study to consider?
the random sampling technique used to recruit the participants
A correlation coefficient and a scatterplot both provide which of the following pieces of information?
the strength and direction of the relationship between two measurement
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
By examining the marginal means, it appears that in this study
there is a main effect of focus of the activity
Based on these results, Dr. White should conclude that
there may be unexamined factors influencing the results that contributed to the results of other studies on this topic.
Which of the following is true of instrumentation threats?
they can be avoided with counterbalances
Negatively worded questions have low construct validity because
they capture people's ability to understand the question rather than their true opinions
How many conditions/levels of the independent variable were in Dr. Lonsbary's study?
three
Why is it important to adopt the mindset of a scientific reasoner?
to avoid falling into the pitfalls of personal biases
Which of the following is a reason why a researcher might choose to conduct a double-blind placebo control group study?
to control for observer bias
Which of the following is a reason that a researcher might choose a pretest/posttest design?
to ensure that random assignment made the treatment/comparison groups equal
What is the primary purpose of peer review?
to ensure the relevance, accuracy, and integrity of the content
Which of the following is a reason psychological scientists publish their research in scientific journals?
to have their results reviewed by other psychologists
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
What are the two main reasons to conduct a factorial study?
to test limits and test theories
Dr. Deveraux has conducted a study that has resulted in a null effect. Nonetheless, she suspects that there truly is a causal relationship between her independent and dependent variables. Which of the following is UNLIKELY to be to blame?
too many participants
Which of the following is a reason that a study might yield a null result?
too much within-group variance
While reading about a research study, which of the following would tell you that an association claim is being made?
two measured variables
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
If a sample is biased, then it is ________ the population of interest.
unrepresentative of
Which of the following can help prevent testing effects?
using a comparison group
Dr. Carter is curious about how self-esteem changes as a result of a new counseling program. She is concerned about testing threats in her study. Which of the following would you recommend to her as a way to address this type of threat?
using a different measure of self-esteem at pretest than at posttest
Dr. Persaud is curious as to whether children in a daycare center will share more after watching an educational video on sharing. Immediately before and after the video, she has several undergraduate research assistants code the sharing behavior of a group of 33 four-year-olds. Which of the following would you recommend to her to decrease the threat of instrumentation?
using clear coding manuals
Which of the following things can be done to reduce measurement error?
using more reliable measurements
In which of the following cases might a small effect still be important?
when it is aggregated over many situations
Using a matched-group design is especially important in which of the following cases?
when you have only a few people in your study
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
In this study, the authors were interested in participants' board game performance. Which of the following would be a reasonable operational definition of performance?
whether participants won against a partner
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 coffee in the 24 hours prior to the study
You are looking to purchase a new pair of running shoes. Which of the following should you consider when looking at the Zappos.com headline "61% said this shoe felt true to size"?
whether the people who rated the shoe share same characteristics as others who bought the shoe
Dr. Hoda measures job satisfaction and number of years of education. In examining her scatterplot, she sees the cloud of points has no slope. This indicates which type of relationship?
zero association