Chapter 4 - Reliability and Validity

Question 1

When the doctor weighs Morgan as a measure of eating behavior, he uses what method of observation? __________

Answer 1

recording outcome

Question 2

If two observers agree on their observations, you cannot conclude that their observations were reliable unless they were made on the same __________.

Answer 2

response

Question 3

Most of us tend to look for the causes of behavior in people’s thoughts. The problem with such private events is that we must still __________ them.

Answer 3

explain

Question 4

Dom observed the stories on the evening news one day. He found that 9 of the news items were biased. Jan also watched the evening news on the same day and found that 10 were biased. She decided Dom’s observations were reliable. Do you agree with her conclusion? __________ (Yes, No)

Answer 4

yes

Question 5

Marge defined good teaching behavior as having personal contact with students. She observed that Tom had few personal contacts with his students. She suggested that he start having more personal contacts with his pupils. She again observed and found that he had many personal contacts with them. Marge then had 10 parents view a videotape of Tom’s teaching. They rated Tom’s quality of teaching as low when they observed few personal contacts and high when he had many personal contacts. In other words, the parents’ ratings correlated with Marge’s observations based on her behavioral definition. This correlation showed that Marge’s behavioral definition of good teaching had __________.

Answer 5

social validity

Question 6

Barb inspected the cleaning jobs according to a 10-item checklist at 8:00 Thursday night. She found that 9 items had been done. Vince inspected the same cleaning jobs according to the same checklist at 8:00 Friday night and found only 3 of them done. Is this evidence that their observations are unreliable? __________ (Yes, No)

Answer 6

no

Question 7

Williams and colleagues developed a new behavioral definition of non-cooperation. Two of their observers agreed 83% during simultaneous observations. Is this level acceptable? __________ (Yes, No)

Answer 7

yes

Question 8

The general formula for calculating reliability is __________.

Answer 8

100xA/(A+D)

Question 9

Suppose you define pain behavior as holding the pained area, moaning, and complaining of pain. Suppose observers using this behavioral definition find Mark not engaging in those behaviors during videotape A. Suppose they find him engaging in those behaviors in videotape B. How would you use five nurses to test the social validity of your behavioral definition? *short answer

Answer 9

Ask the nurses to serve as an outside judge and rate the amount of Mark’s pain for each videotape. If the nurses rate pain as low for tape A and high for tape B, (in other words they correlate with the observer’s observations) then the behavioral definition

Question 10

Dan counted the number of consecutive 15-second intervals during which his baby sister was smiling. He was using __________ recording.

Answer 10

interval

Question 11

Reliability is a measure of the extent to which there is __________ between two independent variables.

Answer 11

agreement

Question 12

Tamara observed that Boris watched the news during 59 out of 60 half-minute intervals on Monday. Ann observed that Boris only watched the news during 23 out of the 60 half-minute intervals on Tuesday. Can you conclude that Tamara and Ann’s observations are unreliable? __________ (Yes, No)

Answer 12

no

Question 13

Kim and Jose counted shootings stars one might. Kim saw 17, and Jose saw 20. Compute their reliability: [a] %; is it acceptable? [b] (Yes, No)

Answer 13

85%; yes

Question 14

Suppose you observe three of Willie’s behaviors that you think are related to how good he is at having a conversation. Suppose you also have three adults watching the same conversations rate how good he was in the conversation. The correlation between your observations and their ratings gives you a measure of the __________ of your behavioral definition.

Answer 14

social validity

Question 15

Eileen checked to see whether her lazy roommate was studying during a short observation made at 19 random times during the day. What method of observation was she using? __________ recording

Answer 15

time-sample

Question 16

Behavior analysts consider everything that a person does to be __________.

Answer 16

behavior

Question 17

Explain in words the formula to compute the reliability of two observers using interval recording

Answer 17

Divide the number of agreements by agreements plus disagreements and multiply by 100

Question 18

When we ask people what TV programs they watch, they name educational programs more often than they actually watch them. This is an example of the problem with what approach to observing behavior? __________

Answer 18

self-reports

Question 19

Kim wanted to observe how well the typist for large companies typed. She counted the number of errors appearing on a letter from Exxon. She found 6. She is using what method to observe that typist’s typing? __________ recording

Answer 19

outcome

Question 20

Reliability can be measured only when two people observe using the same behavioral definition to observe the same __________.

Answer 20

response

Question 21

Joan counted the number of times Professor Brainbuster said “uh” during Monday’s lecture and found that he said it 50 times. If Nel counts 50 “uh’s” during Wednesday’s lecture, can we conclude that their observations are reliable? __________ (Yes, No)

Answer 21

no

Question 22

Larry observed how often Professor Green encouraged students to make comments in his discussion class. Larry decided to record agreements with the comment by the professor. he also recorded praise of the comment. Larry’s decision about what to record would be called a(n) __________

Answer 22

behavioral definition

Question 23

With a new behavioral definition, researchers will accept a reliability figure of __________%.

Answer 23

80

Question 24

Quinn et al. (1992) showed that adults rated accepting criticism as high when roommates kept calm and repeated the criticism and low when they did not. The researchers showed that using those behaviors to define “accepting criticism” has __________.

Answer 24

social validity

Question 25

Suppose that one observer using event recording counts 25 responses, and a second observer counts 20. What observations do you assume they agree on and what observations do you assume they disagree on? Compute the reliability for this case.

Answer 25

80%