Methods exam 2
When reading an empirical journal article "with a purpose," which two questions should you ask yourself as you read?
"What is the argument?" and "What is the evidence to support the argument?"
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
after reading the textbook chapter, you say to yourself, "I am sure other people might engage in faulty thinking, but I never would." What are you experiencing?
Bias Blind spot
Which of the following questions assesses internal validity when evaluating causal claims?
Did the researcher randomly assign participants to the different groups
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 book
reports the methods and results for research studies that are being reported for the first time
Empirical journal articles
explains the topic of the study. describes the theoretical and empirical background for the research and states the specific research goals for the current study
Introduction
measures the degree and the direction of the linear relationship between two variables
Pearson Correlation Coefficient
one way to represent an association is to plot one variable on the X-axis and the other variable on the Y-axis
Scatter plot
Dr. Nixon, a cognitive psychologist, conducts an experiment examining the effect of emotion on memory. He provides lists of 15 words to two groups of participants at his university. He puts the names of 40 participants in a hat. The first 20 names he assigns to Group A and the last 20 he assigns to Group B. Group A is given a list of words that are very emotional in content (e.g., passion, murder). Group B is given a list of words that are neutral in content (e.g., houseplant, desk). He then measures how many words each group is able to remember after being distracted for 5 minutes by watching a video about the history of the university. He finds that Group A remembers 15% more words than Group B. Dr. Nixon sends his study to a journal to be published. One of the peer reviewers questions the way that Dr. Nixon manipulated emotion, arguing that being exposed to emotional words does not make someone emotional. The reviewer is questioning which of the following?
The construct validity of the study
Dr. Nixon, a cognitive psychologist, conducts an experiment examining the effect of emotion on memory. He provides lists of 15 words to two groups of participants at his university. He puts the names of 40 participants in a hat. The first 20 names he assigns to Group A and the last 20 he assigns to Group B. Group A is given a list of words that are very emotional in content (e.g., passion, murder). Group B is given a list of words that are neutral in content (e.g., houseplant, desk). He then measures how many words each group is able to remember after being distracted for 5 minutes by watching a video about the history of the university. He finds that Group A remembers 15% more words than Group B. Which of the following is the independent variable in Dr. Nixon's study?
The content of the words
Dr. Nixon, a cognitive psychologist, conducts an experiment examining the effect of emotion on memory. He provides lists of 15 words to two groups of participants at his university. He puts the names of 40 participants in a hat. The first 20 names he assigns to Group A and the last 20 he assigns to Group B. Group A is given a list of words that are very emotional in content (e.g., passion, murder). Group B is given a list of words that are neutral in content (e.g., houseplant, desk). He then measures how many words each group is able to remember after being distracted for 5 minutes by watching a video about the history of the university. He finds that Group A remembers 15% more words than Group B. Dr. Nixon's decision to assign participants randomly to Group A and Group B increases which of the following
The internal validity of the study
Dr. Nixon, a cognitive psychologist, conducts an experiment examining the effect of emotion on memory. He provides lists of 15 words to two groups of participants at his university. He puts the names of 40 participants in a hat. The first 20 names he assigns to Group A and the last 20 he assigns to Group B. Group A is given a list of words that are very emotional in content (e.g., passion, murder). Group B is given a list of words that are neutral in content (e.g., houseplant, desk). He then measures how many words each group is able to remember after being distracted for 5 minutes by watching a video about the history of the university. He finds that Group A remembers 15% more words than Group B. If Dr. Nixon decided against using random assignment, which of the following would be threatened?
The internal validity of the study
Dr. Nixon, a cognitive psychologist, conducts an experiment examining the effect of emotion on memory. He provides lists of 15 words to two groups of participants at his university. He puts the names of 40 participants in a hat. The first 20 names he assigns to Group A and the last 20 he assigns to Group B. Group A is given a list of words that are very emotional in content (e.g., passion, murder). Group B is given a list of words that are neutral in content (e.g., houseplant, desk). He then measures how many words each group is able to remember after being distracted for 5 minutes by watching a video about the history of the university. He finds that Group A remembers 15% more words than Group B. Which of the following makes Dr. Nixon's study an experiment
The study included a manipulated variable and a measured variable
A psychiatrist is testing a medication that treats anxiousness. He has given the medication to all his patients, and all of them have experienced a decrease in their feeling of anxiousness. Although this is interesting, his experience is limited because he does not have
a comparison group that did not receive the medication
you are interested in examining the relationship between a person's attachment style and his/her relationship satisfaction. You find 65 studies that have examined this topic. You combine the results of all these studies and calculate an effect size. Your research is most accurately described as _____.
a meta-analysis
What should the introduction of a research report include
a summary of recent research on the primary topic of interest
Which of the following could be an independent variable in a casual claim
a variable that is manipulated
Which of the following is the first section of an empirical journal article
abstract
briefly describes the study's hypothesis, methods, and major results
abstract
argues that one level of a variable is likely to be associated with a particular level of another variable
association claim
When reading an empirical journal article "with a purpose," why should you read the abstract first?
because it provides an overview of the article
Which of the following allows us to make strong predictions using association claims
both strong positive associations and strong negative associations
Which of the following best describes an abstract?
brief summary of an article
The introduction of the paper starts _____ and then ________
broad, focuses
One variable causes change in another variable
casual claims
an edited book is comprised of chapters on a common topic or theme, and each chapter is written by a different author
chapters in an edited book
An argument someone is trying to make
claim
a given range indicated by a lower and upper value that is designed to capture the population value for some point estimate
confidence interval
a variable we are not interested in, but that changes the outcome of the experiment
confound
abstract, theoretical concepts
construct (conceptual) variable
How well a conceptual variable is operationalized
construct validity
a type of study in which the variables are measured and the relationship between them is investigated
correlational study
the extent to which two variables are observed to go together
covariance
The absence of random assignment in any study
decreases internal validity
You are writing your first empirical journal article. Although you think you know why you found the results you did, you also want to mention some alternative explanations for your findings. In which section will you mention these alternative explanations?
discussion
summarizes the study and discusses the study's significant contributions and perhaps alternative explanations for the results
discussion
Dr. Nixon, a cognitive psychologist, conducts an experiment examining the effect of emotion on memory. He provides lists of 15 words to two groups of participants at his university. He puts the names of 40 participants in a hat. The first 20 names he assigns to Group A and the last 20 he assigns to Group B. Group A is given a list of words that are very emotional in content (e.g., passion, murder). Group B is given a list of words that are neutral in content (e.g., houseplant, desk). He then measures how many words each group is able to remember after being distracted for 5 minutes by watching a video about the history of the university. He finds that Group A remembers 15% more words than Group B. Based on this study, Dr. Nixon can make which of the following claims?
emotion enhances memory
at least one variable is manipulated and at least one variable is measured
experiment
how well the results of a study generalize to, or represent, people or contexts outside of those of the original study
external validity
The discussion is _____ at the beginning and _____ at the end
focused, broad
describes a particular level or degree of a single variable
frequency claim
this is not a common way for psychologists to publish their work, but it is common in other disciplines
full-length books
how did the researchers choose the participants, and how well do those participants represent the intended population
generalizability
the ability to eliminate alternative explanations for the association
internal validity
When researchers conduct an experiment comparing two different treatment conditions, they are likely to be more concerned with _____ validity than _____ validity.
internal, external
The independent vairable
manipulated
the dependent variable
measured
combines results of many studies
meta-analysis
explains in detail how the researchers conducted the study
method
variable A increases but variable B decreases
negative association
to operationalize a variable means to turn a conceptual definition into a measured or manipulated variable
operational variables
a single estimate of some population value based on data from a sample
point estimate
You find that there is a relationship between the amount of sleep one gets and their problem-solving ability. Specifically, having a higher amount of sleep the night before an exam is associated with higher scores on two measures of problem-solving. This is an example of which type of association?
positive association
both variable A and B increase
positive association
Your friend asks you about the best way to study for an exam. You respond that the best way to study is by making flashcards. You can easily think of all the times that you used flashcards and got an A on an exam. However, you fail to take into consideration the times that you got an A on an exam without using flashcards to study, or the times you used flashcards to study but did not do well on an exam. Your faulty thinking is an example of _____.
present/present bias
Which of the following is a limitation of PsycINFO compared to Google Scholar?
psychINFO is not free to use
full bibliographic listing of all the sources the authors cited in the article
references
the measure yields similar scores on repeated measurments
reliability
How does research overcome the problem of confounds
research systematically compares multiple conditions
describes the statistical tests used
results
summarize the published studies that have been conducted in that particular research area
review journal articles
Which of the following is true of variables
some variables can be either manipulated or measured
the extent to which a study's statistical conclusions are precise, reasonable, and replicable
statistical validity
the causal variable (independent) clearly comes first in time, before the effect variable (dependent)
temporal precedence
Which of the following is a casual claim
texting interferes with a driver's ability to pay attention
Dr. Nixon, a cognitive psychologist, conducts an experiment examining the effect of emotion on memory. He provides lists of 15 words to two groups of participants at his university. He puts the names of 40 participants in a hat. The first 20 names he assigns to Group A and the last 20 he assigns to Group B. Group A is given a list of words that are very emotional in content (e.g., passion, murder). Group B is given a list of words that are neutral in content (e.g., houseplant, desk). He then measures how many words each group is able to remember after being distracted for 5 minutes by watching a video about the history of the university. He finds that Group A remembers 15% more words than Group B. Which of the following is the dependent variable in Dr. Nixon's study
the number of words remembered
random assignment
the use of a random method to assign participants into different experimental groups
One of the reasons that research studies are superior to personal experience is
they include at least one comparison group
the appropriateness of a conclusion or a decision
validity
One criterion for determining that Variable X causes Variable Y is that
we can determine that Variable X occurs before Variable Y
edited books consist of a collection of chapters
written by many different experts
There is not association between variables
zero association
