Doing psychology

Question 1

What is psychophysics?

Answer 1

Psychophysics is the relationship between psychological and physical

Question 2

What is the just noticeable difference?

Answer 2

The just noticeable difference is the smallest detectable difference between two stimuli

Question 3

What is the absolute threshold?

Answer 3

Absolute threshold is the smallest detectable sensation that can be detected.

Question 4

What did absolute threshold become a unit of measure for? and what did this lead to?

Answer 4

Absolute threshold became the unit of measure for sensation making it possible to measure relationship between physical and mental. It also meant it was possible to vary stimuli

Question 5

What is nominal data?

Answer 5

Nominal data is numeric values indicate groups but nothing about the numbers mean anything apart from splitting people into groups

Question 6

What is ordinal data?

Answer 6

Ordinal data is numeric values that order responses

Question 7

What is interval data?

Answer 7

Interval data is numeric values with no meaningful zero point

Question 8

What is ratio data?

Answer 8

Ratio data is numeric values with meaningful zero point

Question 9

What is reliability?

Answer 9

Reliability is the accuracy of our measurement (i.e. consistency)

Question 10

What is accuracy of measurement across items referred as?

Answer 10

Accuracy of our measurement across items is referred to as internal consistency

Question 11

What is internal consistency?

Answer 11

Internal consistency is a set of items or stimuli that closely assess or measure the same things

Question 12

What is accuracy of measurement across persons referred as?

Answer 12

Accuracy of our measurement across persons is referred to as inter-rater agreement

Question 13

What is inter-rater agreement?

Answer 13

Inter-rater agreement is the extent to which a number of different raters of a particular target agree with each other

Question 14

What is accuracy of measurement across time referred as?

Answer 14

Accuracy of measurement across time is referred to as test-retest

Question 15

What is test-retest?

Answer 15

Test-retest is when a test is taken one day, and repeated the day after, and then again in two weeks, and refers to how closely the test scores resemble each other

Question 16

What is validity?

Answer 16

Validity concerns the degree to which our measurement tool measures what it was designed to measure

Question 17

What is content validity?

Answer 17

Content validity is when the test/measure contains content relevant to the intended construct

Question 18

What is face validity?

Answer 18

Face validity does appear to measure the intended construct

Question 19

What is convergent validity?

Answer 19

Convergent validity is high correlations with measures of the same construct

Question 20

What is discriminant validity?

Answer 20

Discriminant validity is low correlations with measures of different constructs

Question 21

What is concurrent validity?

Answer 21

Concurrent validity is when the correlations are being derived from contemporaneous measures

Question 22

What is predictive validity?

Answer 22

Predicative validity is when the construct predicts an expected outcome at some time in the future

Question 23

What is measurement error?

Answer 23

Measurement error is the difference between measured value and the true value

Question 24

What is measured value?

Answer 24

Measured value is the value I am given in a study

Question 25

What is the true value?

Answer 25

True value is the actual level of some constraint

Question 26

What is random error?

Answer 26

Random error is inevitable and uncontrollable

Question 27

What is systematic error?

Answer 27

Systematic error can be reduced with good study design and measure selection

Question 28

What is experimental psychology?

Answer 28

It studies cause and effect by manipulating independent variables in the controlled environment of the laboratory

Question 29

What is correlational psychology?

Answer 29

It studies natural variance in the real world which had obvious practical advantages

Question 30

What is a dependant variable?

Answer 30

A dependant variable is the thing we want to predict/ understand (also known as outcome)

Question 31

What is an independent variable?

Answer 31

An independent variable is the thing we hypothesize influences the dependant variable (also known as predictor)

Question 32

What is the covariate?

Answer 32

The covariate is the thing that will influence the outcome but we may not hypothesize about

Question 33

What is observational research?

Answer 33

Observational research is observed in the native environment in the real world, there’s no control over setting

Question 34

What is experimental research?

Answer 34

Experimental research is observed in an controlled environment of the lab

Question 35

What is exploratory research?

Answer 35

Exploratory research is exploring a topic with no fixed hypotheses about what influences might be involved

Question 36

What is confirmatory research?

Answer 36

Confirmatory research is when a specific claim is being tested

Question 37

What are pilot studies?

Answer 37

Pilot studies are often used as exploratory research in which the main goal is to test materials and procedures

Question 38

What is primary data?

Answer 38

Primary data is new data collection

Question 39

What is secondary data?

Answer 39

Secondary data is using available data for a different purpose

Question 40

What is a key feature of experimental design?

Answer 40

In experimental design we manipulate our independent variable

Question 41

What is a key feature of observational design?

Answer 41

In observational design there is no manipulation of the independent variable

Question 42

What are the four things that reliable and valid experiments should be?

Answer 42

Reliable and valid experiments will be replicable, reproducible, robust and generalizable