Module 3

How does a researcher know which methods she should use to test her hypothesis in psychological research?

The best method depends on the question being asked as well as the resources that are available to the researcher.

A researcher wants to make sure that her assistants did not give any hints regarding which participants are in which treatment groups and to also make sure the participants did not know which group they were in. She should use (a):

double-blind procedure

The value of random assignment is that it:

ensures the equivalence of the experimental and control groups.

The most accurate research method of determining whether caffeine supplements improve memory performance is:

experimental study

The independent variable in an experiment is defined as the:

factor that the experimenter manipulates.

A positive correlation between two variables suggests that

high scores on one variable relate to high scores on the second variable.

A negative correlation between two variables suggests that

high scores on one variable relate to low scores on the other.

Sarah is part of a study that requires her to travel to the laboratory for an interview once every 10 years for an experiment that tracks her physical activity. This type of design is a(n):

longitudinal study

Dr. Annistad conducts a correlational research study and calculates that the variables in question have a correlational coefficient of -.81. In this statistic, the number itself gives us information about the ______ of the relationship between the two variables.

magnitude

Operational definitions are encouraged in research in order to:

make terms used in a study as explicit as possible

The primary weakness of the case study method is

nongeneralizable

Blake is selected for a study on music preference and happiness. He thinks the experimenter's hypothesis is that people who listen to classical music are happier. As a result, Blake reports listening to classical music more often than he really does, and that he is happier than he really is. This is an example of:

participant demand

Barbara is complaining that she has terrible abdominal pains. Several physicians have found nothing wrong with her. One physician gives Barbara a prescription for tablets with no real medication in them. "I think that this new medication will be very helpful for your abdominal infection," the physician tells Barbara. Within 24 hours of taking the fake medication Barbara reports that her abdominal pains have disappeared. This is called a ______.

placebo effect

You want to study the effects of gender on math achievement. However, you know that you cannot randomly assign some people to male and others to be female, so you cannot have a true experiment. In this scenario, what type of research design would you use?

quasi-experiment

Evidence reveals a correlation between the number of hours toddlers spend watching television and their level of hyperactivity in later childhood. What does this definitively indicate?

that there is a relationship between television viewing and hyperactivity

One reason for using random assignment is:

to help ensure that participant characteristics don't become confounding variables

Which of the following is the major problem involved in conducting a correlational study?

Cause-and-effect conclusions cannot be drawn.

Which kind of research allows us to passively observe two variables to determine a relationship between them without drawing cause-and-effect conclusions?

Correlational research

Which of the following is an example of an empirical question that could be tested using systematic observation?

How does race impact voting trends in a political election?

In correlational research, the strength of the relation between two variables is indicated by:

a mathematical score ranging from +1.0 to -1.0.

An article headline claimed that "Drugs Cause Homelessness" due to a positive relationship found between homeless populations and drug use. Educated psychologists thought this might be flawed, because they thought unemployment was influencing both drug use and homelessness. This is an example of:

a third variable

Maritza is in a study testing if almond milk slows the development of brittle bones. She's in the study for 3 months but doesn't know that her milk allergy is causing her body to block nutrients, so it doesn't help her. Maritza's allergy is an example of a(n):

confound