Research Methods

Question 1

Surveys

Answer 1

Description: asks people to report their behavior or opinions
Strengths: Cheap to administer, gather info about people quickly
Weaknesses: Wording effects, Sampling Error (doesn’t represent entire pop), low response rate, people lie

Question 2

Case Studies

Answer 2

Description: An observation technique in which one person is studied in depth in the hopes of revealing universal principles
Strengths: one person can tell a lot about people
Weaknesses: one case may be misleading

Question 3

Naturalistic Observation

Answer 3

Description: observing and recording behavior in naturally occurring situations
Strengths: see authentic behavior
Weaknesses: can’t interfere at all

Question 4

Correlation Studies

Answer 4

Description: Examines relationships between two variables
Correlations range from -1 to 1
Strengths: can show a relationship between two variables
Weaknesses: Correlation does not prove causation, third variable problem

Question 5

Positive Correlation

Answer 5

as one goes up, so does the other (absolute value determines strength)

Question 6

Negative Correlation

Answer 6

as one goes up, other goes down (absolute value determines strength)

Question 7

Theory

Answer 7

an explanation that integrates and organizes and predicts behaviors or events

Question 8

Hypothesis

Answer 8

a testable prediction, often prompted by a theory, educated guess often an if/then statement that expresses a relationship b/w two variables

Question 9

Research

Answer 9

conduct a study (experiment) to either confirm or disprove our hypothesis

Question 10

Independent variable

Answer 10

the factor that researchers manipulate so they can determine its effect. If there are multiple independent variables, they are known as levels of the independent variable

Question 11

dependent variable

Answer 11

the factor that changes in response to the independent variable

Question 12

Experimental group

Answer 12

the group that receives the treatment

Question 13

Control group

Answer 13

the group that does not receive the treatment

Question 14

Confounding Variable

Answer 14

other variables that could possibly affect the experiment (we want to minimize these)

Question 15

3 keys to an experiment

Answer 15

1. Manipulate the independent variable
2. Measure the dependent variable
3. Control for extraneous variables

Question 16

Basic Ethical Principles

Answer 16

1. Must not harm participants
2. must not break any laws
3. must obtain informed consent before and debrief participants after
4. deception is okay as long as participants are informed of the deception after the experiment is concluded
5. must keep individual results confidential
6. Harm to animals is permissible if it is for the greater human good, there is no alternative, and the benefits outweigh harm

Question 17

Population

Answer 17

the entire target that you want to learn about

Question 18

Sample

Answer 18

those from the population that you select to be part of your study
- should be as representative of the population as possible

Question 19

Random Sampling

Answer 19

everyone from the population has an equal chance of being chosen for the study

Question 20

Random Assignment

Answer 20

once chosen, those in the sample have an equal chance of being assigned to experimental or control group

Question 21

Hawthorne Effect

Answer 21

just being in an experiment can cause change

Question 22

Placebo Effect

Answer 22

expectations affect performance

Question 23

Placebo

Answer 23

a substance or treatment that has no effect apart from a person’s belief in it

Question 24

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Answer 24

a belief that results in behavior that makes the belief come true

Question 25

Single-Blind Study

Answer 25

participants do not know whether they’re in the experimental or control group

Question 26

Double-Blind Study

Answer 26

both subjects and experimenters are kept uninformed

Question 27

Operational Definitions

Answer 27

precise definitions that show how variables will be measured (love, aggression)

Question 28

Reliability

Answer 28

replicate the experiment and get the same results

Question 29

Statistical Significance

Answer 29

the difference is so great that it could not be due to chance alone; the more people the lower the stat sig

Question 30

Mode

Answer 30

the most frequently occurring score in a distribution

Question 31

Mean

Answer 31

the arithmetic average of scores in a distribution

Question 32

Median

Answer 32

the middle score in a rank-ordered distribution

Question 33

Range

Answer 33

difference between the lowest and highest scores in a distribution

Question 34

Standard Deviation

Answer 34

a computed measure of how much scores vary around the mean

**the higher the variance or SD, the more spread out the distribution is

Question 35

Normal Distribution

Answer 35

mean, median, and mode are all the same

Question 36

Positively Skewed distribution

Answer 36

one high score outlier with lots of low scores

Question 37

Negatively Skewed distribution

Answer 37

one low score outlier with lots of high scores

Question 38

Inferential Statistics

Answer 38

can the findings (results) from our study be generalized (inferred) to the entire population? To find out, we need to conduct tests to see if our data is actually meaningful or if our results could have been due to chance alone