Claims and Validity Flashcards
(40 cards)
What are the three types of claims?
Frequency, association, and causal.
What are the four validities?
Construct, external, statistical, and internal.
What is a variable?
An attribute that varies, having at least two levels, or values.
What is a value?
One of the possible variations, or levels, of a variable.
What is an example of variables and values?
Stress is the variable, stressed or not stressed is the value.
What is a constant?
Something that could potentially vary but that has only one level in the study in question.
What are the two types of variables?
Measured (DV) and manipulated (IV).
What is a measured variable?
A variable in a study whose levels are observed and recorded. E.g., height, IQ, blood pressure, depression, hair colour, etc.
What is a manipulated variable?
A variable in an experiment that researchers control by assigning participants to different levels.
What are some examples of variables that can only be measured?
IQ, age, hair colour, etc.
What is a claim?
The argument an author or scientist is trying to make.
What is a frequency claim?
A claim that describes particular rate or level of a single variable.
What is an association claim?
A claim about two variables, in which the level of one variable is said to vary systematically with the level of another variable, such that when one variable changes, the other does too.
What is a causal claim?
A claim arguing that a specific change in one variable is responsible for influencing the level of another variable.
What distinguishes a frequency claim from association and causal claims?
Frequency claims only involve a single variable.
What is an anecdotal claim? Is it the same as a frequency claim?
An anecdotal claim tells an illustrative story about an isolated event, it is NOT the same as a frequency claim.
What does it mean to correlate?
To occur or vary together systematically.
How many variables do association and causal claims involve?
At least two.
What is a curvilinear association?
An association which, as one variable increases, the level of the other variable changes its patterns (such as increasing and then decreasing).
What differentiates causal claims from association claims?
Causal claims use more causal language, claiming a direct relationship between two variables.
What is construct validity?
A measure of how well a variable was measured or manipulated during a study.
How does one ensure construct validity?
The researcher must establish that each variable has been measured reliably, and that differing levels of a variable accurately correspond to true differences.
What is external validity?
A measure of how well there results of a study generalize to, or represent, individuals or contexts besides those in the study itself.
What is generalizability?
The extent to which the subjects in a study represent the populations they are intended to represent or how well the settings in a study represent other settings or contexts.
