Research Methods in Psych Quizzes

Which of the following phrases in a popular media article suggests that multiple regression was used?

"controlled for"

Which of the following phrases would be a clue that the study described in a popular media article was a factorial design?

"it depends"

(CH.7) Which sample size is often cited as the optimal balance between statistical accuracy and polling effort?

1,000

How many independent variables and how many cells are there in a 2 × 3 × 4 study?

3 independent variables, 24 cells

A researcher wants to run a 2 × 3 mixed factorial design. The first factor is within-subjects. The second factor is between-subjects. If the researcher wants 20 observations per cell, which of the following is the correct number of participants he will need in total?

60

(CH.2) Research suggests that the time a student spends studying for an exam is positively related to the grade that student receives on the exam. However, last week, you took an exam without studying and got an A on the exam. What should you conclude about the relationship between study time and exam scores?

Although your experience with one exam is an exception, the research findings explain a certain proportion of the many possible cases.

(CH.2) Which of the following is a reason to trust the advice of authorities?

Authorities systematically and objectively compare different conditions.

(CH.5)Which statistic is used to represent the internal reliability of multiple-item self-report scales?

Cronbach's alpha

(CH.1) Daniel's teacher tells him that his theory about dating is not strong because it is not falsifiable. What does she mean by this?

Daniel's theory cannot be disproven.

(CH.2) As part of an assignment for his Introduction to Psychology class, Gilbert has to read a journal article, summarize it, and compare it to what is reported in his textbook. Gilbert selects the article "Effects of Severe Daily Events on Mood," Stone and Neale (1984). If Gilbert wanted to read about the study's contributions and significance, he should look at which section of the article?

Discussion

Onwuegbuzie et al. (1999) examined foreign-language anxiety as a predictor of foreign-language achievement. They performed a multiple-regression analysis and included other predictor variables, including academic achievement, perceived scholastic competence, and perceived self-worth. They found β = −.39 for foreign-language anxiety and .29 for academic achievement. Which of the following explains what this means?

Foreign-language anxiety has a greater effect than academic achievement does on foreign-language achievement.

There is a strong positive association between years of education and income. The mean income for American adults in 2005 was $32,000 and the average number of years of education was 12. If Mr. Lopez has 16 years of education, which would you predict about his income?

His income is probably higher than $32,000.

Mischel (1972) studied delay of gratification in preschoolers: Children were offered a special reward if they could wait or a less attractive treat if they chose not to wait. A follow-up study was done years later, looking at the same children as adolescents. The researchers found an association between the waiting times of the preschoolers and parents' reports of the same children's behaviors as adolescents. Which of the following is a question one could ask to assess the construct validity of this association?

How well was delay of gratification measured?

(CH.3)In most experiments, tradeoffs are made between validities because it is not possible to achieve all four at once. What is the most common tradeoff?

Increased internal validity results in decreased external validity.

(CH.2) Dr. Friedman suspects that women who work outside the home might be frustrated with the balance of responsibilities in their household. She devises a survey to give to married women employed outside the home that includes the question "Does your spouse bother to help you around the house?" What is the problem with Dr. Friedman's approach?

It is an example of asking hypothesis-confirming questions.

(CH.7) Dr. Lawrence is the director of Counseling Services at her university. She is planning to conduct a survey of 100 students at the university to see how aware they are of the counseling services that are offered at the university. She wants the proportion of men and women in her sample to reflect the proportion in the university as a whole (55% women and 45% men). Dr. Lawrence plans to stand in the Student Union and ask people to participate until she has given the survey to 55 women and 45 men. Is Dr. Lawrence collecting a representative sample?

No, because the participants are selected non-randomly.

(CH.6) Professor Law wants to construct a survey to assess involvement with computer games. Which question is a double-barreled question?

On a scale of 0 (not at all) to 5 (very much), rate how much you like and play your favorite game.

(CH.2) Which of the following is NOT a reason why basing one's conclusions on research is superior to basing one's conclusions on personal experience?

Research definitively proves theories.

Which of the following does NOT characterize a small-N design?

Results are analyzed in terms of statistical significance.

(CH.1) Which of the following characteristics sets scientific journals apart from magazines?

Scientific journals are peer reviewed.

Emma is planning an experiment to examine whether reading to children increases their vocabulary size. She plans to measure the vocabulary size of a group of 18-month-old children, read to them three times a week for 3 months, then measure their vocabulary size again. Emma could change the design of the study to remove a major threat to internal validity by doing which of the following?

She could add a comparison group.

(CH.2) Hilda is studying the effects of a major natural disaster on people living nearby. She finds that many of the victims are depressed and show stress-related symptoms. Why can't Hilda conclude that the natural disaster caused the depression and stress-related symptoms?

She doesn't have a comparison group.

Which of the following is a method for addressing concerns about external validity in a small-N study?

Specify a limited population to generalize to.

Professor Fofana wonders if there is an association between students' grades and extra credit points earned in his classes. He makes a scatterplot, with the number of extra credit points earned on the x-axis and the numerical grade in his course without extra credit on the y-axis. He finds r = .28. What does this correlation tell him about which students take advantage of the extra credit option?

Students with higher grades are more likely than students with lower grades to do extra credit work.

June is interested in looking at whether social media use predicts feelings of loneliness and found there was a positive relationship between the two variables. However, she finds that after controlling for the amount of time a person spends with friends per week, social media use was no longer associated with feelings of loneliness. Which of the following is the correct interpretation of this finding?

The amount of time spent with friends is a third-variable problem.

(CH.5) Dr. Johnson wants to investigate whether the physiological measure, heart rate variability, varies over time or whether it is a trait that stays stable within the same person over time. He records participants' heart rate variability once at the beginning of the semester and once at the end of the semester. He finds a high positive correlation (r = .55) between the first and second time points. Which of the following would a scatterplot of these results (heart rate variability at the beginning of the semester on the x-axis, heart rate variability at the end of the semester on the y-axis) look like?

The cloud of points would slope upward from left to right.

(CH.4) Which of the following is NOT one of the categories of ethical violations that occurred in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study?

The investigators fabricated data.

(CH.3)There is a negative association between exercise and obesity. Which of the following would a researcher need to demonstrate to make the claim that a lack of exercise causesobesity?

The lack of exercise came before the obesity.

(CH.2) A school district decides to compare a new math textbook with the textbook that has been used for the past few years. Each of the fourth graders in one school is randomly assigned to be in one of two classes, one in which a teacher continues using the old book and another in which a new teacher uses the new book. The school administrators compare the average scores of the two classes on a mathematics standardized test at the end of the year to determine which book is better. Which of the following is a potential confound in this study?

The teachers have different amounts of teaching experience.

(CH.1) When the data from a study do not support the theory behind the study's hypothesis, what does that mean for the theory?

The theory should be revised.

Dr. Stevens wants to examine the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and depression. He selects as his research subjects a sample of American athletes who are currently training for the summer Olympic Games. Dr. Stevens finds no relationship between BMI and depression. Which of the following is one problem with his research design that could have kept him from finding a relationship between those variables?

There is a restriction-of-range problem.

A multiple-regression analysis is run to examine third variables as a follow-up to the study indicating that boys with unusual names are more likely to commit crimes. Unusual names, ethnic backgrounds, and geographical regions are all included as predictor variables. Even after controlling for all these variables, unusual names still predict criminal activity. Which of the following explains why this study doesn't establish causation?

There may be some other third variable.

(CH.6) Which of the following is a method to control for observer bias?

Use a masked or blind study design.

Individual differences can contribute to too much within-group variability. Which of the following is a possible solution to individual differences?

Use a within-groups design rather than an independent-groups design.

(CH.6) Which of the following is a way to control for socially desirable responding?

Use measures, such as the Implicit Association Test, to evaluate implicit, unconscious opinions.

(CH.6) Professor Law wants to construct a survey to assess involvement with computer games. Which is a forced-choice question?

Which is truer of you? 1) I have little interest in computer games or 2) I would miss computer games if I couldn't play anymore.

(CH.6) Is it ethical for psychological researchers to observe people in a public place?

Yes, because in those settings people can reasonably expect their behavior to be public, not private.

(CH.4) Dr. Kim is researching treatments for childhood cancer. There is some risk that patients who undergo Dr. Kim's new therapy may be harmed by the procedure. However, based on preliminary lab testing, the patients might benefit substantially from his treatment. If you were on the institutional review board (IRB) evaluating Dr. Kim's research proposal to test his new treatment, which of the following would make you more likely to approve the proposal?

You decide that the potential benefits of the study outweigh the potential risks.

(CH.7) Which of the following is the term used when every member of a population is studied?

a census

(CH.3)It has been reported that half of Americans show road rage. For this claim to have strong external validity, which of the following would have been the best sample for the researcher to have used?

a cross-section of American drivers representing men and women; people from the city, suburbs, and farms; and people of all ages

Which of the following is an extra dependent variable that can be used to help researchers quantify how well an experimental manipulation worked?

a manipulation check

If the relationship between two variables changes depending on the level of another variable c, which of the following is the term for this other variable, c?

a moderator

Jenna is interested in the association between the height of professional basketball players and their free-throw shooting percentage. She looks at the correlation between NBA players and their free-throw percentage from last season and she finds a statistically significant negative association. Jenna's friend Elizabeth suggests Jenna should look at a scatterplot of the data. Jenna follows Elizabeth's advice and finds one of the players is much shorter than the rest of the players and that player has a much better free-throw shooting percentage. When Jenna removes this player from her analysis, she finds there is no longer a statistically significant relationship between height and free-throw shooting. Which kind of problem has Elizabeth helped Jenna identify?

a problem with an outlier in the sample

(CH.7) A political research center obtains a list of phone numbers for all registered voters in Texas and uses a random number generator to select 1,000 of the phone numbers to call. They ask each voter which candidate for governor they plan to vote for in the upcoming election. To which population of interest does the research center want to generalize?

all registered voters in Texas

Koordeman et al. (2011) conducted a study on the effect of alcohol commercials on alcohol consumption in a movie theater. Participants saw one of two types of beverage commercials: alcoholic or nonalcoholic. Their consumption of alcohol during the movie was then measured. Finally, they completed a questionnaire on their usual drinking habits. Koordeman et al. found that young adults who generally consume large amounts of alcohol each week were influenced to drink more alcohol when they saw alcohol commercials, whereas the alcohol consumption of young adults who generally consume small amounts of alcohol each week was not influenced by the type of commercial shown. Which of the following is a participant variable in this study?

amount of alcohol consumed by the young adult during the week

(CH.3)What kind of a claim is the following headline making? "Former NFLers at Higher Risk for Brain, Mood Problems."

association claim

Which threat to internal validity occurs when there is a greater systematic loss of participants in one condition than the other condition?

attrition

Professor Horvat designs a study to assess the work satisfaction and home-life satisfaction of a group of graduate students. She administers the same measures of work and home-life satisfaction on two occasions, 1 year apart. She finds job satisfaction at the first time point is correlated with job satisfaction at the second time point. Which type of correlation is this?

autocorrelations

(CH.1) Research done specifically to add to our general understanding of psychology is known as ______________.

basic research

(CH.4) Following a study using deception, how does the researcher attempt to restore an honest relationship with the participant?

by debriefing each participant in a structured conversation

In a business class experiment on the endowment effect, Theo is comparing the value of a coffee mug to someone who owns it and is selling it to someone who is buying it. The endowment effect describes the tendency of sellers to value something they own more than buyers do. Participants are randomly assigned to be buyers or sellers of a mug with their first name on it. Buyers select the maximum price they would pay for the mug. Sellers select the minimum price they would accept for the mug. Theo controls for selection effects in which of the following ways?

by using random assignment of participants

(CH.4) A researcher suggests to potential study participants that if they do not participate they will suffer negative consequences. This undue influence is called ____________.

coercion

(CH.2) Which of the following is the term used in psychology to describe a person who is an actor playing a specific role as part of an experiment?

confederate

Dr. Russell did a study that found praise provided by supervisors is associated with higher levels of work productivity only because more-motivated employees are praised more often, and highly motivated people are more productive. In her findings, employee motivation is a ___________ in the relationship between praise from supervisors and work productivity.

confounding third variable

(CH.7) Dr. Rhodes is interested in how differing levels of light affect how people perceive color. He finds participants for this research study by making an announcement in several psychology classes at his university. Which kind of sampling method is Dr. Rhodes using?

convenience sampling

Professor Horvat designs a study to assess the work satisfaction and home-life satisfaction of a group of graduate students. She administers the same measures of work and home-life satisfaction on two occasions, 1 year apart. She finds home-life satisfaction measured at the first time point is strongly correlated with job satisfaction at the second time point, but there is no correlation between job satisfaction measured at the first time point and home life satisfaction measured at the second time point. Which of the three criteria for causation does Professor Horvat's study fulfill?

covariance and temporal precedence

Professor Horvat designs a study to assess the work satisfaction and home-life satisfaction of a group of graduate students. She administers the same measures of work and home-life satisfaction on two occasions, 1 year apart. She finds home-life satisfaction measured at the first time point is strongly correlated with job satisfaction measured at the second time point. Which type of correlation is this?

cross-lag

The Yerkes-Dodson law (1908) shows performance increases with arousal up to a point, but beyond that, performance decreases with increasing arousal. Which type of correlation is this?

curvilinear

(CH.4) Professor Kwan studies violence and designs a study of the effects of video game violence on children. She recruits low-income, Hispanic children from schools near the university to participate. Each child is assigned to play either a violent or nonviolent video game 2 hours each evening for a month. The children's teachers are asked to assess changes in behavior. Data analysis shows no effect of game type, but Professor Kwan knows several children didn't follow the procedure, so she makes up data for them and then shows a significant effect. Which part of American Psychological Association (APA) Ethical Standard 8 did the data violate?

data fabrication

(CH.4) Dr. Sanders conducted a study that investigated the happiness of people listening to different kinds of music. He predicted that people would report being happier when they were listening to rock music than when they were listening to country music. Dr. Sanders threw out the data from several participants who reported being very happy while listening to country music because he thought that they weren't being honest. Dr. Sanders has committed what kind of ethical violation?

data falsification

(CH.5)Which of the following is an example of a categorical variable?

declared major in college

Which of the following is a potential disadvantage of within-groups designs?

demand characteristics

(CH.5)Mendoza et al. (2009) introduced a coin-rotation task as a convenient test of motor dexterity. It involves timed completion of twenty 180° rotations of a nickel using the thumb, index, and middle fingers. Research participants' results on the coin-rotation task are compared with their results on a test of grip strength (a measure of another construct: global upper-extremity strength). The correlation between the coin-rotation task and the grip strength task were found to be not statistically significant. This comparison provides support for which type of measurement validity?

discriminant validity

(CH.5)Sun Mi is designing a questionnaire on loneliness. She is concerned that some features of loneliness are similar to depression and to low self-esteem. Which type of validity does she need to show to demonstrate that her questionnaire assesses loneliness and not depression or low self-esteem?

discriminant validity

(CH.1) Psychological scientists base their conclusions on evidence. They collect and use data to develop, support, or challenge a theory. This approach is known as ____________.

empiricism

(CH.1) Which of the following is a common way journalists misrepresent science when they write about it for a popular audience?

exaggerating the strength of the findings

A drought in California created the opportunity for a quasi-experiment on the effectiveness of fines on water conservation (Agras et al., 1980). Three comparable cities were considered - two that instituted fines at different times and a third that did not. Water consumption data for the 3 years before the onset of the fines were used as baseline and subsequent consumption data were gathered through the end of the drought. Effectiveness of fines was assessed by examining consumption the following month. In this study, researchers capitalized on real-life opportunities to study phenomena. Therefore, they maximized which type of validity?

external

Frances conducted a study on the concreteness on memory in her dorm. She created a list of 12 items that are very concrete (e.g., pencil and table) and a list of 12 items that are very abstract (e.g., justice and freedom). Each item was viewed for 1 second, then participants recalled them in order. Ten participants were randomly assigned to each list of items. The study showed null effects. Which is a possible explanation for this null effect?

external distractions that lead to unsystematic variability

(CH.5)Dr. Nolan gives his new anxiety measure to a group of his colleagues who are anxiety experts. They agree that the questions on the measure appear to assess anxiety symptoms. This suggests that Dr. Nolan's measure has which of the following types of measurement validity?

face validity

Which of the following designs is one in which there are two or more independent variables?

factorial

(CH.4) Professor Silva is a clinical psychologist who teaches a course in abnormal psychology at the university. He maintains a clinical practice and several of his current students are his clients. Which of the APA's Five General Principles does this violate?

fidelity and responsibility

(CH.7) Typically, in which type of claim is it most important to have a random sample?

frequency

Professor Schwartz examines the relationship between time spent at a shopping mall and happiness. She finds that for millennials, the more time in the mall is associated with higher levels of happiness. She finds that for baby boomers, the more time in the mall is associated with lower levels of happiness. Which is the moderator in this relationship?

generation of the people being examined

A city in California has asked Professor Rodriguez to conduct an experiment on earthquake preparedness. Professor Rodriguez will assess the preparedness of a random sample of residents in the city and the city will mail out their annual brochure on earthquake safety. Then, 2 weeks later, he will again assess the preparedness of those residents. Right after the brochures are mailed, a large earthquake is reported in Japan. Which threat to internal validity does this pose?

history

If everything else is equal, which of the following methods can help increase power in a study?

increasing sample size

In an experiment on improving children's handwriting, two different techniques of improving handwriting and a control condition are used. Using a pretest/posttest design, both groups who received the treatment showed more improvement than the control group. However, the two groups didn't show any difference from each other. The researcher believes there is a difference but that the 5-point assessment scale of handwriting cannot detect it. Which measurement problem is the researcher concerned with?

insensitive measures

As part of an experiment on the effects of behavior modeling, a set of raters are evaluating prosocial behavior in a series of videotapes of a preschool class. Initially, the raters were quite strict in their ratings, but after 3 hours of rating, their criteria had changed. Which type of threat to internal validity has occurred?

instrumentation

What is it called when the effect of one independent variable depends on the level of another independent variable?

interaction

(CH.5)Lorenzo is studying aggression in children. He administers a questionnaire to the children that asks them about their feelings of aggression. Lorenzo runs a statistical test to find how consistent the responses are to different wordings of items on the questionnaire given to the children. Which type of reliability is he examining with this questionnaire?

internal

(CH.3) A recent headline read, "School Lunches Make Kids Fat." The article cited a study comparing children at two schools. The school with the lower obesity rate only had a few children who ate lunch provided by the school. The other school had a greater percentage of obese children and most of these children ate school lunches. No mention was made that many of the children who eat school lunches are low-income children who receive free lunches. Poverty is a major factor in obesity. Which validity is threatened by the potential confound, poverty?

internal validity

(CH.3)Professor Nakum designs a memory experiment to test the effect of word familiarity on memory. Three lists of words are created: common words, uncommon words, and made-up words. Participants are randomly assigned to study one of the lists of 30 words for 5 minutes, do math problems for 5 minutes, then write all the words they recall from the list. Their score is the number of words correctly recalled. The use of random assignment of participants increases which of the following?

internal validity of the study

(CH.5)Julie has developed an intervention to improve the relationship between parents and preschool-aged children. To evaluate the effectiveness of her intervention, Julie video records the parents interacting with their children at the end of the study. She has two research assistants watch the videos and rate the level of warmth in the interaction. Julie then correlates the ratings of the raters. She finds a high positive correlation (r = .87) between the two raters. Which of the following types of reliability is she examining?

interrater

(CH.4) Professor Kwan studies violence and designs a study of the effects of video game violence on children. She recruits low-income, Hispanic children from schools near the university to participate. Each child is assigned to play either a violent or nonviolent video game 2 hours each evening for a month. The children's teachers are asked to assess changes in behavior. Which of the Belmont Report principles is violated by the choice of participants?

justice

(CH.4) To study a sample of participants from only one ethnic group, researchers must first demonstrate that the problem being studied is especially prevalent in that ethnic group. This is an application of which principle from the Belmont Report?

justice

(CH.5)Dr. Kamran studies domestic violence and has designed a self-report scale that is meant to assess men's negative attitudes toward women. To validate her scale, she administers it to two groups of recently incarcerated male prisoners: prisoners convicted of domestic violence and prisoners convicted of other crimes. Dr. Kamran finds a statistically significant difference in the mean scores of the two groups. Which technique is Dr. Kamran using to validate her scale?

known-groups paradigm

Researchers de Abreu, Gathercole, and Martin (2011) found the correlation of nonword repetition and digit recall in a memory was r = .59. Based on Cohen's (1992) guidelines, which of the following describes this effect size?

large

Kathryn wants to control for intelligence in her study. She has a list of all the participants for her study and their IQ scores. She sorts the list of participants according to their IQ scores and then forms groups, making sure the groups are balanced in terms of IQ scores. Finally, she randomly assigns each group to one of the conditions of her study. Which kind of design is Kathryn using?

matched groups

Some internal validity threats can be addressed simply by including a comparison group, whereas other internal validity threats can occur even in studies with a comparison group. Which of the following threats to internal validity would be improved with the inclusion of a comparison group?

maturation threats

When a third variable explains the relationship between two other variables, that kind of third variable is called a _____.

mediator

Susan designed a study in which she had a group of younger adults (18 to 24 years old) and older adults (50 to 65 years old). She had both groups recite a poem by memory once in front of an audience of 50 people and once in a room by themselves. She counterbalanced the order of these tasks between participants. She had the participants rate their level of anxiety right before they recited the poem each time. Which type of study design is this?

mixed factorial design

A psychologist is working with the parents of four children who exhibit violent behaviors toward each other. The parents have been instructed to record the number of these behaviors each child exhibits in the predinner hour for 1 week. The parents then begin using a positive reinforcement technique to shape the behavior of the youngest child while continuing to record violent behaviors. The recording continues and the technique is used on one additional child each week. By the end of 6 weeks, there is a significant decrease in violent behaviors for each of the children. Which type of design is this?

multiple baseline

(CH.6) Jenny recently learned of plans to cut down an old, beautiful tree on her campus to make way for a new bike path. Jenny is opposed to cutting down the tree, so she decides to survey some students at her university to see if others also oppose cutting down the tree. She plans to share the results of her survey with the school administration to argue to keep the tree. One question on Jenny's survey asks, "Do you oppose not cutting down this tree?" A problem with this question is that it is which type of question?

negatively worded

A company that owned several hospitals in rural areas of the south went bankrupt and, over a couple of months, closed the hospitals it operated. Researchers became aware of this situation and used public health records to document average age at death of residents in those communities where the hospitals closed and in communities that were matched on several variables but did not lose their hospitals (2 groups of communities). The researchers collected death records for several years before and after the closure of these hospitals to look at the effect the closure had on life expectancy. Which type of research design are the researchers using?

nonequivalent control group interrupted time-series design

(CH.6) The campus safety committee has asked Professor Ibrahim to study bicycling on his campus. He trains two observers and has them observe the number of cyclists and their safety at various points around campus. Both observers are very interested in the topic because they have been struck by bicycles. Which threat to construct validity should concern Professor Ibrahim even if the interrater reliability is high?

observer bias

(CH.6) In a study, students received rats they believed to be genetically bred as "maze-bright" or "maze-dull" rats. For the next several days, students trained and recorded how long it took for their rats to complete a maze. Although the rats were genetically the same breed, the "maze-bright" rats showed improvement in their performance every day, whereas the "maze-dull" rats did not. This study is examining which of the following?

observer effects

(CH.7) Mr. Stratford is the president of a national organization of lesbian, bisexual, gay, and transgender people in the United States. He wants to survey 1,000 members of his organization about the position they want the organization to take on several political issues. He knows that transgender people make up only 5% of his organization, but he wants to make sure their views are accurately represented. He decides to randomly sample 100 transgender members and then adjust the final results so transgender people are weighted to their actual proportion in the organization. Which type of sampling is Mr. Stratford using?

oversampling

Dr. Keller wants to test the effect of a new antianxiety medication. He recruits a group of anxious patients and randomly assigns them to two groups. One group will receive his new medication and the other will receive a sugar pill. The second group is called which of the following?

placebo group

(CH.4) Which type of research misconduct involves representing the ideas or words of others as one's own?

plagiarism

Which kind of design is an experiment in which each participant is randomly assigned to one level of the independent variable and then tested on the dependent variable once?

posttest only

Leigh is interested in looking at how caloric intake affects performance. She conducts a study in which participants drink a cup of water before completing a task, then eat small meal before completing the task again. Based on her study design, which of the following should she be concerned about?

practice effects

Cara is running a study to examine the effect of music on mood. She randomly assigns participants to three conditions: rock, jazz, and country. She has the participants rate their mood with a short questionnaire, then listen to their assigned music for 20 minutes, and then fill out the mood questionnaire again. Which kind of design is she using?

pretest/posttest

(CH.6) Which of the following describes a "fence-sitting" response to a survey?

responding to a controversial question on a survey by selecting the response right in the middle

Ellen is an elementary school teacher who has a very disruptive child in her classroom. She wants to see whether using a good-behavior point system will be effective for managing this child's behavior. She begins by noting the child's behavioral outbursts for a week before she begins the point system, then she tries using the point system for 2 weeks and notices a drop in the child's outbursts. For the next 2 weeks, she discontinues using the point system and she notes an increase in the child's outburst. Which kind of design is Ellen using to test this intervention?

reversal

In a business class experiment on the endowment effect, Theo is comparing the value of a coffee mug to someone who owns it and is selling it to someone who is buying it. The endowment effect describes the tendency of sellers to value something they own more than buyers do. Participants are randomly assigned to be buyers or sellers of a mug with their first name on it. Buyers select the maximum price they would pay for the mug. Sellers select the minimum price they would accept for the mug. Which is the independent variable in this experiment?

role of the participant

In addition to effect size, you must also know which of the following to determine if a correlation is statistically significant?

sample size

In a nonequivalent control group design, participants in the control group may match the treatment group on an important factor. This is an attempt to prevent which threat to internal validity?

selection

In a quasi-experiment by Minke (2011), the effectiveness of Skejby, a Danish half-way house that mixes offenders with nonoffenders, was compared with that of the control condition of half-way houses housing only offenders. Measurement of effectiveness was based on rate of recidivism of former inmates. If inmates are allowed to choose their own half-way house, which threat to internal validity would this potentially pose?

selection

Participants in a research study are given a list of words to study for 3 minutes and then, after a delay, are asked to recall the list. The length of the delay is manipulated between participants to be either 2 minutes, 5 minutes, or 10 minutes. Because different groups need different amounts of time, the first 25 participants who arrive are assigned to the 10-minute group, the next 25 are assigned to the 5-minute group, and the final 25 are assigned to the 2-minute group. Which confound does this create?

selection effect

(CH.7) The student government at a college is interested in determining how important intercollegiate sports are to the students there. Because all students have e-mail accounts, the student government can send a survey to all the students. About 50% of the students respond. Which is the most likely bias in this sample?

self-selection bias

(CH.6) Joseph wants to find out what customers at his restaurant think about the food and the service. He creates a survey for diners to fill out at the end of their meal. It requests the diners do the following: 1) Please rate the food from 1 to 10, where 1 is yucky and 10 is delicious; 2) Please rate the service from 1 to 10 were 1 is unacceptable and 10 is outstanding. Which kind of question format is Joseph using?

semantic differential

(CH.3) Jenny reads the headline, "Tea Party Supporters Have Slipped To 20 Percent." She asks, "What is the margin of error of the estimate?" What validity is she interrogating?

statistical validity

(CH.7) A college administrator knows that 70% of the students at her college are from out of state, so she decides to make sure that she includes 70 out-of-state students and 30 in-state students in her survey about admission practices at the college. She has a list of all the out-of-state and in-state students currently enrolled at the college. She randomly selects 70 students from the out-of-state list and 30 students from the in-state list. Which sampling method is she using?

stratified random sampling

(CH.7) The directors of an annual community concert want to learn the musical preferences of the audience. The ushers place a survey card on every sixth seat beginning with the second seat (2 and 6 were chosen from a random number table). All the cards are returned as the audience leaves. Which type of sampling is being used?

systematic sampling

Which of the answer pairs correctly completes the following sentence: Although we cannot establish causation with correlational designs, longitudinal designs address concerns of _____ and multiple regression addresses concerns of ____?

temporal precedence; internal validity

An instructor hypothesizes that doing jumping jacks will improve his students' quiz performance. On Monday, he has his class sit in their chairs for 5 minutes before completing a multiple-choice quiz on their reading assignment. On Wednesday, he has his class do 2 minutes of jumping jacks before completing the same quiz that they took on Monday. The students performed better on the quiz on Wednesday. Which is a possible threat to internal validity in this study?

testing

(CH.3)Reading the news on the Internet, Johan comes across the headline, "When Stress is Increased, Men Rush Ahead, Women More Cautious." (This headline is based on a study conducted by Lighthall et al., 2011.) In this study, men and women were asked to perform a decision task as many times as possible in a set period, in either a stressed or unstressed condition. In the unstressed condition, men and women performed similarly. However, in the stressed condition, the number of decision tasks performed by men increased while the number performed by women decreased. Which of the following is a constant in this study?

the amount of time to perform the decision task

(CH.2) After two students from his school commit suicide, Marcelino thinks that the most likely cause of death in teenagers is suicide. What type of bias is affecting his thinking?

the availability heuristic

(CH.2) The idea that things that easily come to mind tend to guide our thinking is known as which of the following?

the availability heuristic

(CH.5) Professor Morgan questions whether the ratings he receives from his students on "teaching effectiveness" indicate how much the students learn in his class or whether they are just a reflection of how much his students like him. Which aspect of the ratings is he questioning?

the measurement validity of the ratings

(CH.3)Professor Nakum designs a memory experiment to test the effect of word familiarity on memory. Three lists of words are created: common words, uncommon words, and made-up words. Participants study one of the lists of 30 words for 5 minutes, do math problems for 5 minutes, then write all the words they recall from the list. Their score is the number of words correctly recalled. Which of the following is the dependent variable in this study?

the number of words correctly recalled

(CH.1) Franchesca read about Mrazek et al.'s (2013) study in which students scored higher on the GRE after completing a 2-week mindfulness training course. Franchesca is interested in the idea that practicing mindfulness improves the ability to control one's mind from wondering. She decides to conduct a similar study in which she has students practice either mindfulness or read and then take a test of attention. Franchesca predicts that, in line with the original study, students who had practiced mindfulness would perform better on the attention test. She runs the study and finds that the results match her prediction. Which of the following is the data in this study?

the students' performance on the attention task

(CH.1) A statement, or set of statements, that describes general principles about how variables relate to one another is a ________________.

theory

(CH.1) Which of the following outlines the correct order of steps in the theory-data cycle?

theory, research questions, research design, hypothesis, data

Which of the following is NOT a reason for a researcher to select a quasi-experimental design?

to improve internal validity

(CH.1) After reading about Harlow's contact comfort theory, Dr. Borden wonders if these findings would apply to premature babies in the neonatal intensive care unit. He designs a study to test whether touch and cuddling could speed up weight gain in premature babies. What type of research is Dr. Borden's study?

translational research

Jane is conducting a study on the effects of meditation on stress with highly anxious and nonanxious participants. She finds that overall, highly anxious participants reported greater levels of stress and that, overall, participants in the meditation group reported lower levels of stress than the group that did not practice meditation. She also found that the impact of meditation on lowering stress was particularly strong for participants who were highly anxious. Which of the following is a correct description of the results?

two main effects and an interaction

Susan ran a study in which she had a group of younger adults (18 to 24 years old) and a group of older adults (50 to 65 years old). She had both groups recite a poem by memory once in front of an audience of 50 people and once in a room by themselves. She counterbalanced the order of these tasks between participants. She had the participants rate their level of anxiety right before they recited the poem each time. Susan found a main effect for age such that younger people reported being more anxious than older people. She found a main effect for audience size such that people were more anxious in the room with 50 people than they were in the room by themselves. She did not find an interaction in the results. If Susan were to graph her results, which of the following would they look like?

two parallel, diagonal lines

Koordeman et al. (2011) conducted a study on the effect of alcohol commercials on alcohol consumption in a movie theater. Participants saw one of two types of beverage commercials: alcoholic or nonalcoholic. Their consumption of alcohol during the movie was then measured. Finally, they completed a questionnaire on their usual drinking habits. Koordeman et al. found that young adults who generally consume large amounts of alcohol each week were influenced to drink more alcohol when they saw alcohol commercials, whereas the alcohol consumption of young adults who generally consume small amounts of alcohol each week was not influenced by the type of commercial shown. Which of the following is a factor in this study?

type of commercial shown

(CH.3)Phuong is conducting an experiment on proofreading. All participants are asked to read a passage with several typos and correct the errors. However, one group proofreads by reading silently, a second group proofreads by reading aloud, and a third group proofreads by reading the passage silently backward. The researcher calculates the average number of errors found in each group and finds that both the reading silently and reading aloud groups found more errors than the reading silently backward group. What are the variables in this study?

type of proofreading and number of errors found

Julie works at a large gym. She wants to do a study of the effect of having a personal trainer on self-esteem and mood. She collects a list of members at her gym who would like to have a personal trainer. She assigns half of them to have a trainer right away and half of them to wait several months before being assigned a trainer. She measures self-esteem and mood in all of the participants over the next several months, when only one of the groups would have a trainer. Which kind of design is Julie using?

wait-list design