MCQ 1

Question 1

Which variable is Age?

1. Nominal
2. Continuous

Answer 1

Continuous

Question 2

Which variable is Gender?

1. Nominal
2. Continuous

Answer 2

Nominal

Question 3

Which variable is Height?

1. Nominal
2. Continuous

Answer 3

Continuous

Question 4

Which of the following best describes a confounding variable?

1. A variable that is manipulated by the experimenter
2. A variable that affects the outcome being measured as well as, or instead of, the independent variable
3. A variable that has been measured using an unreliable scale
4. A variable that is made up only of categories

Answer 4

A variable that affects the outcome being measured as well as, or instead of, the independent variable.

Question 5

If a test is valid, what does this mean?
1. The test measures what it claims to measure
2. The test will give consistent results
3. The test has internal consistency
4. The test measures a useful construct or variable

Answer 5

The test measures what it claims to measure

Question 6

A variable that measures the effect that manipulating another variable has is known as:

1. A confounding variable
2. A predictor variable
3. An independent variable
4. A dependent variable

Answer 6

A dependent variable

Question 7

The discrepancy between the numbers used to represent something that we are trying to measure and the actual value of what we are measuring is called:

1. Variance
2. Measurement error
3. Reliability
4. The ‘fit’ of the model

Answer 7

Measurement error

Question 8

A frequency distribution in which low scores are most frequent (i.e. bars on the graph are highest on the left hand side) is said to be:

1. Leptokurtic
2. Negatively skewed
3. Platykurtic
4. Positively skewed

Answer 8

Positively skewed

Question 9

Which of the following is designed to compensate for practice effects?
1. A repeated measured design
2. Giving participants a break between tasks
3. Counterbalancing
4. A control condition

Answer 9

Counterbalancing

Counterbalancing involves systematically varying the order of conditions across participants to control for order effects. This helps distribute practice effects evenly across different experimental conditions. For example, half of the participants might experience Condition A followed by Condition B, while the other half experiences the reverse order. This helps minimize the impact of practice effects on the results.

Question 10

Variation due to variables that have not been measured is known as:
1. Systematic variation
2. Unsystematic variation
3. Homogenous variance
4. Residual variance

Answer 10

Unsystematic variation

Question 11

The purpose of a control condition is to:

1. Control for participant characteristics
2. Show up relationships between predictor variables
3. Allow inferences about cause

Answer 11

Allow inferences about cause

Question 12

What’s the formula for z-score?

Answer 12

z = (x – μ) / σ
OR
z = (value - mean) / standard deviation

Question 13

The standard deviation is the square root of the:

1. variance
2. sum of squares
3. coefficient of determination
4. range

Answer 13

Variance

Question 14

Complete the following sentence:

A large standard deviation (relative to the value of the mean itself):

1. indicates that the mean is a good fit of the data
2. indicates that the data points are close to the mean
3. indicates that you should analyse your data with a parametric test
4. indicates that the data points are distant from the mean (i.e. the mean is a poor fit of the data)

Answer 14

indicates that the data points are distant from the mean (i.e. the mean is a poor fit of the data)

Question 15

Which of these variables would be considered not to have met the assumptions of parametric tests based on the normal distribution?

1. Reaction time
2. Gender
3. Heart rate
4. Temperature

Answer 15

Gender

gender is a categorical variable

Question 16

The test statistics we use to assess a linear model are usually ____ based on the normal distribution.
1. not
2. robust
3. non-parametric tests
4. parametric tests

Answer 16

parametric tests

Question 17

Which of the following is not an assumption of the general linear model?
1. Dependence
2. Additivity
3. Linearity
4. Normally distributed residuals

Answer 17

Dependence

The GLM assumes independence of observations, meaning that the residuals (the differences between observed and predicted values) should not be systematically related or dependent on each other.