Mindtap Chapter 1

In the context of science, a statement that describes or explains a relationship between or among variables is called:

A hypothesis

Deeply religious individuals may defer to their religious leaders for all types of decisions, including those that seem unrelated to religion. This method of acquiring knowledge, called the method of faith, is a variant of which method?

Authority

Russell is shopping for a new car, and when he walks into the showroom, he notices huge monitors playing endorsements by famous athletes. He recognizes that reliance on the method of ____ is a common advertising ploy.

Authority

Sara relies on news from a network known to have an extremely liberal slant, and Constance relies on news from a network known to have an extremely conservative slant. No matter what has occurred, it seems as though their takes are diametrically opposed and completely irreconcilable. Both Sara and Constance are relying on the method of:

Authority

Finding an unanswered research question is often the result of: a. Logical arguments b. Critical reading c. Design constraints d. Random selection

Critical reading

Nina is about to start chemotherapy for cancer. She is aware that chemotherapy can cause vomiting and diarrhea, and therefore reasons that she, too, will experience vomiting and diarrhea. Which of the following best describes Nina's reasoning?

Deduction

A drawback of the method of tenacity is that it:

Does not allow for the correction of erroneous ideas

Jared relies on looking out the window to decide what the day's weather will be like. Jared is relying on which method?

Empiricism

Which method of acquiring knowledge can be time consuming and sometimes even dangerous?

Empiricism

In a recent debate about a sometimes controversial scientific theory, Debater A was able to list observations that would cause her to modify the theory Debater B supported, while Debater B said nothing would cause him to change his views. This suggests that Debater B is:

Engaging in pseudoscience

Select a topic and review the literature.

Find an idea.

Come up with a tentative answer.

Form a hypothesis.

The results from an experiment allow researchers to conclude that there is a cause-and-effect relationship between two variables. On the other hand, a nonexperimental study simply allows researchers to conclude that a relationship exists. What conclusion was made in the Gillen-O'Neel et al. (2013) study?

Increased study time is related to an increase in academic problems.

Tim watches a well-known "reality" competition for fashion designers and, based on his observations of the contestants, concludes that fashion designers are prone to artificially coloring their hair and wearing long, flowing tops. Tim is engaging in:

Induction

Caitlyn is faced with the choice of which of two apartments she should rent. Both have similar costs, locations, size, and amenities, so she finally decides to rent the one that just feels right to her.

Intuition

Jan decides to play the lottery because she just feels like it is her day to win. She picks the numbers based on those that feel right. Jan is relying on which of the following for her decisions?

Intuition

It's the night before an exam, and it's getting late. You are trying to decide whether to study or to go to sleep. There are obvious advantages to studying, especially if you feel that you do not have a good grasp of the material to be tested. On the other hand, a good night's sleep will leave you better prepared to deal with the stress of taking an exam. "To study or to sleep?" was the question addressed by a recent research study (Gillen-O'Neel, Huynh, & Fuligni, 2013). The researchers wanted a clear answer to the question that could be publicly demonstrated so that other scientists could review their work and even repeat the study. They chose to address the question using the scientific method. The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the scientific method and lay the foundation for later chapters, which present the research processes that scientists use to answer questions. You will see that, among other things, the scientific method requires a series of decisions that must be clearly defined and publicly demonstrated. For example, the researchers had to decide exactly which students to examine (grade school, high school, or college). They also had to decide whether to monitor the normal variations in sleep time or to face the ethical question associated with manipulating sleep time by requiring some students to limit their amount of sleep each night. Finally, the researchers had to decide exactly how to define and measure the academic consequences of extra sleep versus extra study. Much of this book presents the decisions that must be made and the options that are available for each step in the research process. In the following paragraph are the decisions, the options, and the results obtained in the Gillen-O'Neel et al. (2013) study. The researchers started with a sample of 535 9th-grade students and followed up with the students when they were in the 10th and 12th grades. Each year, the students completed a daily diary for two weeks. Each evening, the students recorded how much time they spent studying outside of school and how much time they had slept the night before. The students also reported the occurrence of academic problems each day as measured by two choices: "I did not understand something taught in class" and "I did poorly on a test, quiz, or homework." Overall, the results showed that study time did not change over the three grade levels. However, sleep time and the frequency of academic problems both decreased from the 9th to 12th grade. The primary result, however, was that although there was no association between study time and academic problems on the next day in the 9th grade, by the 10th and 12th grades, study time increasingly became associated with academic problems. Specifically, days with greater than average study time tended to be followed by days with more academic problems. You should realize that the specific methods used by Gillen-O'Neel et al. (2013) are not the only possibility for answering the sleep versus study question. For example, the study could be done with older or younger students, and there are many other ways to measure academic performance. On the other hand, the researchers could simply have consulted a group of educational experts. More importantly, however, note that the method they chose resulted in a clear and unambiguous answer. Can you see any flaw in what they did or what they concluded? This is the goal of the scientific method: to produce clear and justified answers to the questions that researchers address. (Source: Gillen-O'Neel, C., Huynh, V. W., & Fuligni, A. J. (2013). To study or to sleep? The academic costs of extra studying at the expense of sleep. Child Development, 84, 133-142. doi:10/1111/j.1467-8624.2012.01834.x)

One of the major learning objectives of this chapter is to identify and describe the steps of the research process. Each of the steps in the process is an action or decision that researchers make. One of the steps in the research process is for researchers to decide how to measure the things that they are interested in studying. Gillen-O'Neel et al. (2013) studied sleep and studying.

The primary distinction between quantitative and qualitative research is that quantitative research typically: a. Produces narrative reports b. Involves extensive note-taking c. Involves listening and interpreting d. Produces numerical scores

Produces numerical scores

Angela likes to try to reason things out and often creates lists of pros and cons to aid her in making decisions. Angela is using the method of:

Rationalism

Jina likes to weigh things out before making decisions. She is prone to creating lists of pros and cons and making choices on the basis of reasoning things out.

Rationalism

Peggy is fascinated by the patterns between diet and behavior in children. She is surprised to learn that, when several researchers tried to repeat a small study of the impact of a gluten- and casein-free diet on the behavior of children with autism, they found the diet failed to produce statistically significant behavioral changes. This process of repeating experiments is known as:

Replication

Marta assures her friend Sara, who is 41 weeks pregnant and enduring a miserably hot, humid summer, with no sign of the baby being ready to be born, that everyone knows eating a salad made with spinach, blackberries, and walnuts will stimulate labor.

Tenacity

Upon hearing that one of her favorite actors has died, Natasha worries out loud about who the other two deaths will involve, as she is certain that deaths come in threes. Natasha's assertion that deaths come in threes is based on which of the following?

Tenacity

When the scientific method is being used, which of the following describes the characteristics or conditions that change or have different values for different individuals?

Variables

After watching several social media debates quickly devolve into name calling, Hayden develops ____ using ____ , or reasoning from his small number of observations to a larger generalization. On the other hand, Lindsay, who has observed the same debates, reasons from a general proposition about methods of persuasion to try to understand the interactions, using ____ .

a hypothesis; induction; deduction

Is it science or pseudoscience? Review the statements and check those that represent science. Check all that apply. Royce has seen advertisements about brain-building games that are "based on" neuroscience. While the website does, indeed, use a lot of neuroscience jargon, he cannot find any evidence of the games themselves having been submitted to any scientific evaluation.

pseudoscience

Is it science or pseudoscience? Review the statements and check those that represent science. Check all that apply. Several parents in the support group to which Melynda belongs tell her that if she removes wheat, dairy, sugar, and artificial flavors and colors from her three-year-old son's diet, his symptoms of autism will be markedly reduced. They tell her the reason mainstream medicine claims these approaches do not work is that neither physicians nor drug companies can make money from them.

pseudoscience

Is it science or pseudoscience? Review the statements and check those that represent science. Check all that apply. Ami has been diagnosed with early skin cancer. She goes to the website of the National Cancer Institute to see what kinds of treatment have been shown to be effective by randomized clinical trials.

science

How did the researchers measure sleep in this study?

Daily sleeping time

One of the steps in the research process is to decide which research strategy to use. One possible research strategy for a researcher to use is an experiment. In an experiment, one variable in the study is manipulated to see whether it causes a change in another variable. Did Gillen-O'Neel et al. (2013) use the experimental strategy?

No

Identify methods and procedures.

Select a design.

Decide on the general approach.

Select a strategy.

In this study, which group recorded the time spent studying?

The students

In logical reasoning, ____ statements describe facts or assumptions that are presumed to be true.

Premise

One of the steps in the research process is to decide which research design to use. One possible research design is the between-subjects design, which involves comparing different groups of individuals. Another type of design is the within-subjects design, where the participants are repeatedly measured, often at different times. Which type of research design did Gillen-O'Neel et al. (2013) use?

Within-subjects design

Scotty has no patience with social media debates about what is or is not happening in politics. He trusts one particular network, and if he hears it on that network, he knows it is true. Otherwise, it cannot be true.

Authority