Threats to Research

Question 1

Reliability

Answer 1

If I measure the same person a second time, I should get similar results. Cannot trust data from an inconsistent measure.

Question 2

Validity

Answer 2

The extent to which your measure measures what it’s supposed to measure.

Question 3

Face validity

Answer 3

Items appear to assess the construct of interest, no items that clearly don’t assess the construct. (based on logic)

Question 4

Content validity

Answer 4

Like face validity, except purpose is to ensure adequate measurement of the construct. (also based on logic)

Question 5

Predictive validity

Answer 5

The measure correlates with related future outcomes (GRE)

Question 6

Can data be used if your data collection measures are not reliable and valid?

Answer 6

No

Question 7

Extraneous variables

Answer 7

• Confounding variables that change along with levels of IV. ex: one group with an upbeat researcher, the other with a solemn researcher.
• Nuisance variable: introduces variability to DV but not a deal breaker

Question 8

What is a subjective construct?

Answer 8

Something less easy to measure, like locus of control or self confidence.

Question 9

What does construct sensitivity refer to?

Answer 9

A measure that is not very sensitive to changes in behavior- require large changes in behavior before changes in measurement scores will be observed. (Beck Depression Inventory)

Question 10

Restriction of range

Answer 10

A threat to research in that it overly limits how people can respond ie if on teacher reviews, you are only given positive options for responses.

Question 11

Reactivity

Answer 11

People behave differently when they know they are being observed.

Question 12

Experimenter bias

Answer 12

We can be inconsistent when we want participants to behave a certain way.

Question 13

Ways to control threats

Answer 13

• plan carefully
• many threats can be eliminated by study design
• randomly sample participants
• operationalize variables, have reliable and valid measures, and have standard measurement procedures.
• blind studies

Question 14

What is the general rule for “enough” participants for valid data?

Answer 14

30

Question 15

Skew

Answer 15

Skew is when the mean of the distribution is shifted left or right (positive or negative)

• “tail of the whale”
• side the tail is on indicates + or -
• if the long tail of the curve points to the right side, the distribution is positively skewed

Question 16

Kurtosis

Answer 16

when too many or too few participants are at the mean

Question 17

Frequency

Answer 17

number of times that you got a certain score within a data set

Question 18

Relative Frequency

Answer 18

f/N

Question 19

Percentile rank

Answer 19

Cumulative frequency/n- tell us how a person scored relative to others, based on their ranking within the distribution.

Question 20

Cumulative Frequency

Answer 20

Running total of all scores observed

Question 21

Sources of data

Answer 21

• direct: gathered from individuals through interview, physical measures, test administration.
• indirect: data gathered from existing sources-archival data like school records, hospital records, info on websites

Question 22

IRB

Answer 22

International Review Board: governing body that reviews research proposals using human participants and decides if research meets ethical standards. Overarching goal is to protect participants.

Question 23

Mesokurtic

Answer 23

a normal distribution that looks like a bell curve

Question 24

Negatively skewed

Answer 24

when the bulk of subjects are on the right and the long tail is pointing to the left

Question 25

Positively skewed

Answer 25

when the bulk of subjects fall to the left side of the curve and the long tail of the curve points to the right side

Question 26

Construct robustness

Answer 26

some constructs are hard to measure with any degree of power (such as birth order or locus of control)

Question 27

Internal validity

Answer 27

does the study control extraneous variables that might have explained results?

Question 28

External validity

Answer 28

do the results generalize to the population at large?

Question 29

How is probability expressed?

Answer 29

p=.05 indicates 95% probability, meaning that chance is operating only 5% of the time (5 times out of 100). This is an accepted standard in psychology research: if a finding is influenced by chance no more than 5% of the time, researchers are happy.