Psych232

Question 1

What are the two distinctive features of experimental designs?

Answer 1

1. Manipulation of the independent variable on two or more levels.
2. Control for extraneous variables

Question 2

What are the three types of scientific claims?

Answer 2

1. Frequency (how much)
2. Association (identify the relationship between two variables but you don’t know its direction
3. Causal

Question 3

Name 6 words used for causation?

Answer 3

1. Cause
2. Improve
3. Impair
4. Decrease
5. Makes
6. Impacts

Question 4

Name four words used for an association?

Answer 4

1. Association
2. Linked
3. Correlated
4. Are

Question 5

Three types of between subjects experimental tests?

Answer 5

1. P.T.O (Post Test Only)
2. Pre-test/ Post-test
3. Matched pairs

Question 6

what are “subject” variables?

Answer 6

Pre-existing individual characteristics:
1. Age 
2. Gender
4. Ethnicity
5. Personality
6. Genetics
This that influence cause but are NOT manipulated by the experimenter.

Question 7

Continuous Independent Variable

Answer 7

There is an underlying mechanism of the IV which links all conditions together
eg. drug dosage across conditions

Question 8

Categorical Independent Variable

Answer 8

Where there is one control condition and a IV manipulated condition. I.e. there either is or isn’t a manipulation

Question 9

Between-Subjects design

Answer 9

Between-Subject designs use categorical Independent variables because one participant is exposed to only one condition.

Question 10

Within-Subjects design

Answer 10

Within-Subjects design uses Continuous Independent variable manipulation because it measures an individuals performance across all conditions.

Question 11

Dependent Variables method options

Answer 11

1. Questionnaires
2. Response Time
3. Choice behaviour
4. Actions & Movements
5. Psychological Responses

Question 12

Construct Validity

Answer 12

How well do our experimental variables replicate the psychology mechanism I want to observe from real life?

Question 13

Extraneous Variables

Answer 13

Are all the possible variable which can affect the dependent variable.

Question 14

Which model would you use to test whether or not mindfulness training reduces anxiety

Answer 14

Post-Test Only Design (P.T.O)

Question 15

how to identify a construct from a variable

Answer 15

constructs are experiences of psychological mechanism i.e. Mindfulness that can be generalised to the whole population
Variables are the things that I manipulate and measure our construct

Question 16

what are the two types of extraneous variables?

Answer 16

Pre-existing i.e. gender, age, traits
or
Situational i.e. anxiety during experiment etc.

Question 17

Confound

Answer 17

confounds are when extraneous variable differ systematically between our experimental conditions i.e more systematic or pre-existing variables in one condition than the other

Question 18

How do we control for confounds

Answer 18

Random Assignment

Question 19

How do we control for Pre-existing confounds

Answer 19

Random Assignment which MUST have a large enough sample size and be truly random.

As both groups, sample size increase with the random assignment of participants the closer the sample mean gets to the true mean

Question 20

Preexisting confound example

Answer 20

women vs men conditions etc. now we can no longer tell if differences in the dependent variables are due to our IV or Gender

Question 21

Situational confound example

Answer 21

environmental conditions i.e. same environment for both conditions, experimenter gender or behaviour which are not identical between conditions.

Question 22

controlling for confounds are used to…

Answer 22

increase external and internal validity.

Question 23

methods of control for pre-existing extraneous variability

Answer 23

We want there to be variability within each condition but controls are used to create equal variance between conditions

Question 24

Controlling for variability between subjects

Answer 24

you can do this by including or excluding participants based off specific extraneous variables they share so we can get closer to the mean using a smaller sample size.

Question 25

homogenous and heterogeneous

Answer 25

homogeneous mixed sample is one with proportional extraneous variability. Heterogeneous samples have in-proportionate variation between individuals between samples

Question 26

Accomplishing random assignment through accounting for selection effects

Answer 26

1. Self-selection where individuals are allowed to choose which condition they would participate in. 2. Non-random assignment participants placed into conditions by interchanging which group they get put in i.e. one in (a) second in (b) 3. Failures of non-random assignment Probability odds may cause groups to have an uneven proportion of extraneous variables

Question 27

3 Control tricks

Answer 27

1. random assignment (pre-existing extraneous variability) 2. Manipulation of IV across conditions and matched with a control condition (reducing situationally extraneous variability) 3. Waitlist control to match for motivation variability; where individuals sign up on a waitlist to be apart of the study and then they are randomly assigned between the two conditions

Question 28

3 Advantages of Pre-test/ Post-test Design

Answer 28

1. Experimenters are able to check whether all experimental conditions have equal variance and thus will provide a sample mean closer to the real mean. 2. Experimenters can track participant dropouts across the experiment to identify what variables are causing the morbidity effect 3. we can compare individual performance pre-test and post-test to track development

Question 29

2 disadvantages of pre-test/ post-test experimental design

Answer 29

1. Pre-test may influence post-test results through exposure, practice and carryover effects 2. Costs more time and money than a post-test experimental design does for both participants and experimenters.

Question 30

Advantages of a post-test only design

Answer 30

1. Efficient, fast and economical | 2. Participants have a lower probability of guessing your research question

Question 31

Disadvantages of a post-test only design

Answer 31

1. We can not measure changes WITHIN both group conditions 2. Prone to the morbidity effect 3. Failures of random assignment to control for the extraneous variable by chance

Question 32

Matched Pairs Design

Answer 32

Matched group design (also known as matched subjects design) is used in experimental research in order for different experimental conditions to be observed while being able to control for individual difference by matching similar subjects or groups with each other.

Question 33

matched pairs designed

Answer 33

when two groups are scientifically equal to each other and we want to test which treatment method works best. BY comparing different post-test results with pre-test results

Question 34

Matched paired design

Answer 34

Is the best method for a small sample size due to costs or rarity uses stratified random assignment

Question 35

Advantages and Disadvantages of Matched Pair Design (2 & 3)

Answer 35

+ Experimental design with the most control for extraneous variables by using the matching technique + A smaller sample size is needed to achieve equal variation of both groups - Prone to testing effects - Takes a lot of Time and Money - Sometimes it is incredibly difficult to find a match on multiple extraneous variables