In this chapter, we identified four scales of measurement: nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio. (a) What additional information is obtained from measurements on an ordinal scale compared to measurements from a nominal scale? (b) What additional information is obtained from measurements on an interval scale compared to measurements from an ordinal scale? (c) What additional information is obtained from measurements on a ratio scale compared to measurements from an interval scale?
> In addition to the key words, you should also be able to define the following terms: Within-subjects design Repeated-measures design Practice Fatigue Contrast effect Complete counterbalancing Partial counterbalancing Latin square Participant attrition
> A recent survey at a major corporation found that employees who regularly participated in the company fitness program tended to have fewer sick days than the employees who did not participate. However, because the study was not a true experiment, you can
> Define extraneous variable and explain how extraneous variables can become confounding variables.
> For each of the following, identify the section of a research report that would probably contain the desired information: How many individuals participated in the study, and what are their characteristics? Why was the study done? Did the study use any
> Briefly explain how a participant characteristic, such as personality, could be a confounding variable in a between-subjects experiment.
> In a between-subjects design, each individual score is obtained from a separate participant. a. Briefly explain why this is an advantage. b. Briefly explain why this is a disadvantage.
> At the beginning of this chapter (p. 186), we described a study comparing the effectiveness of studying material printed on paper to studying material displayed on a computer screen (Ackerman & Goldsmith, 2011). Explain why this study is an example of a
> Describe the advantages of a two-group design compared to an experiment with more than two groups.
> In addition to the key words, you should also be able to define the following terms: Within-subjects design Between-subjects design Independent-measures design Random assignment Variance within treatments, or variance within groups Differential attrit
> Explain how the process of randomly assigning participants to treatment conditions should prevent a participant variable such as age or gender from becoming a confounding variable.
> What is the novelty effect, and how does it affect a study’s external validity?
> Identify the two characteristics needed for a research study to qualify as an experiment.
> Explain how a researcher using simple random sampling can still obtain a biased sample.
> It has been demonstrated that students with high self-esteem tend to have higher grades than students with low self-esteem. Does this relationship mean that higher self-esteem causes better academic performance? Does it mean that better academic performa
> Explain the distinction between naturalistic observation and participant observation, and describe the situations in which participant observation may be particularly useful.
> By manipulating the participants’ experiences, it is possible to examine how people’s performance and attitudes are influenced by success and failure. To do this, researchers can give some participants a feeling of success and others a feeling of failure
> For each of the following scenarios, identify which research strategy is used: descriptive, correlational, experimental, or nonexperimental. (Note: For now, do not differentiate between nonexperimental and quasi-experimental studies. The distinction betw
> Describe how participant reactivity can be a threat to external validity; that is, how can participant reactivity limit the ability to generalize research results?
> Describe how experimenter bias can be a threat to internal validity; that is, how can experimenter bias provide an explanation for the scores in one condition being higher than the scores in a second condition?
> Can a research study be an experiment without a control group? Can a study be an experiment without controlling extraneous variables?
> In addition to the key words, you should also be able to define the following terms: Third-variable problem Directionality problem Confounding variable Random process Placebo Mundane realism Experimental realism
> Describe the advantages and disadvantages of convenience sampling.
> Explain how inter-rater reliability is established.
> Suppose that a social scientist has developed a questionnaire intended to measure the quality of romantic relationships. Describe how you could evaluate the reliability of the questionnaire.
> Explain the difference among the terms research strategy, research design, and research procedure.
> What information should be included in the abstract of an APA-style research report?
> What is the primary threat to internal validity for a study that compares different groups of participants?
> In addition to the key words, you should also be able to define each of the following terms: Descriptive research strategy Linear relationship Curvilinear relationship Positive relationship Negative relationship Correlational research strategy Experiment
> Explain the advantages and disadvantages of a stratified random sample compared with a proportionate stratified random sample.
> Explain the role of voluntary participation in informed consent.
> For each of the following, identify which of the three basic principles of the Belmont Report is being violated: a. A researcher recruit’s poor minorities to be participants in a risky experiment b. A researcher tricks people into participating by sugges
> Describe what it means to say that science is empirical, public, and objective, and explain why each of these principles is important.
> Describe the relative strengths and weaknesses of self-report measures compared to behavioral measures.
> Select one construct from the following list: Happiness ……………... hunger Exhaustion ……………. motivation Creativity ……………… fear Briefly describe how it might be measured using: (a) An operational definition based on self-report (e.g., a questionnaire) (b) A
> For each of the following scenarios, identify which sampling method is used: a. The State College is conducting a survey of student attitudes and opinions. The plan is to use the list of all registered students and then select every 10th name on the list
> In addition to the key words, you should also be able to define each of the following terms: Target population Accessible population Law of large numbers Sampling methods, or sampling techniques, or sampling procedures Simple random sampling Systematic s
> Describe how time, event, or individual sampling is done during behavioral observation, and explain why sampling may be necessary.
> Summarize the major APA ethical standards concerning the care and use of animals in research.
> Describe in your own words the criteria that the IRB uses to evaluate proposed research.
> Explain the difference between passive and active deception.
> What constitutes fraud, and what are some reasons for its occurrence?
> In addition to the key words, you should also be able to define each of the following terms:
> For each of the following operational definitions, decide whether you consider it to be a valid measure. Explain why or why not. Decide whether you consider it to be a reliable measure. Explain why or why not. (a) A researcher defines social anxiety in t
> How does a full-text database differ from other databases?
> According to the gambler’s fallacy, if a coin toss results in heads three times in a row, then the probability of tails increases for the fourth toss. Describe how you would use the empirical to evaluate this claim.
> Define primary and secondary sources and explain how each plays a role in the process of finding a research idea.
> Briefly explain what an operational definition is and why operational definitions are sometimes necessary.
> Create an example of a citation for each of the following: a. A single author cited in parentheses: b. Two or more authors cited as the subject of a sentence c. Seven authors cited in parentheses d. The second citation of a study with three authors as
> In addition to the key words, you should be able to define each of the following terms:
> In addition to the key words, you should also be able to define each of the following terms:
> List the five sections typically found in a research article, and describe briefly what each should contain.
> What are the five steps of the scientific method?
> In this chapter, we identified the method of authority, the rational method, and the empirical method as techniques for acquiring information. For each of the following, choose one of these three methods and describe how you could use it to answer the qu
> Based on the following descriptions of studies, determine whether each of the studies can be classified as basic or applied research. (a) A researcher conducts a study to determine whether there is a significant increase in job satisfaction if employees
> Suppose that you are debating whether to hitchhike across country or take the bus. Explain how the rational method could help you make a decision.
> Describe why you might be cautious about using the Internet to find answers to medical questions.
> Determine whether each of the following hypotheses is testable and refutable. If not, explain why.
> At the beginning of Chapter 2, we described a study by Jones, Jones, Thomas, and Piper (2003) demonstrating that alcohol increases the perceived attractiveness of opposite-sex individuals. Write a sentence that presents this result as a statement of fact
> Is the following hypothesis testable, refutable, and positive? Explain your answer.
> Construct a frequency distribution histogram or polygon for the set of scores presented in the following frequency distribution table: F 8 2 7 4 6. 7 6 4 3 3 1
> Suppose that you wake up in the morning with all the symptoms of a head cold. You take a cold pill and eat a big bowl of your mother’s chicken soup. By midday your cold symptoms are gone, and you are feeling much better. Can you conclude that the chicken
> A linear relationship falls more or less along a straight line, and is measured by Pearson’s r. A relationship that is consistently one-directional, either consistently positive or consistently negative, is called a monotonic relationship. It is measured
> Define the concept of “stability” within a phase, and explain why it is important.
> In a single-case study consisting of a series of phases, how long should each phase be and what factor determines that it is time to change phases?
> What elements are required for a single-case research study to qualify as an experiment?
> What is the purpose for determining a set of behavior categories and creating a list of specific behaviors to define each category before making behavioral observation?
> Identify the appropriate statistical test for each of the following nonexperimental and quasi-experimental designs. a. A differential design: b. A cross-sectional design comparing children at ages 10, 14, and 18: single
> Explain why an ABAB reversal design is inappropriate for a treatment that has a permanent or long-lasting effect.
> Mueller and Oppenheimer (2014) conducted a series of studies comparing the effectiveness of taking classroom notes on laptops versus writing longhand. In one study, students were instructed to use their normal classroom note-taking strategy using either
> Describe the three ways identified in the text to find or develop a new research idea from existing research report(s).
> Explain why the main effects in a factorial study may not provide an accurate description of the results.
> Describe the pattern that would appear in a scatter plot showing the data points for each of the following correlations: r = –0.9 and r = +0.3.
> Explain the distinction between experimental and nonexperimental research strategies.
> Although the cohort effect can be a serious problem for cross-sectional research, it is not a problem for longitudinal designs. Explain why not.
> What is a ceiling effect, and how can it be a problem?
> Explain how a matched-subjects design attempts to avoid the major problem with between-subjects experiments (individual differences) and the major problem with within-subjects experiments (time-related factors).
> Why are studies that examine the effects of aging not considered true experiments?
> Identify the two active methods of preventing extraneous variables from becoming confounding variables.
> A researcher measures personality characteristics for a group of participants who successfully lost weight in a diet program, and compared their scores with a second group consisting of individuals who failed to lose weight in the program. Is this study
> The following data show the pattern of results that was obtained in a study by Liguori and Robinson (2001) examining how different levels of alcohol and caffeine consumption influenced response time in a simulated driving test. The means show the average
> Briefly explain why a clinical psychologist might prefer doing research with a single-subject design instead of traditional group design.
> Give an example of a situation (aside from gender) in which a researcher must examine preexisting groups.
> Explain why we can be more confident about causal relationships between variables when a quasi-experimental design is used instead of a nonexperimental design.
> Explain how using college students as participants in a study may limit the external validity of a study’s research findings
> Explain the advantages and disadvantages of using random assignment as a method to prevent individual differences from becoming confounding variables.
> A researcher would like to compare two methods for teaching math to third-grade students. Two third-grade classes are obtained for the study. Mr. Jones teaches one class using method A, and Mrs. Smith teaches the other class using method B. At the end of
> If a researcher selects a sample from each of the following populations, then which is likely to be a probability sample, and which is likely to be a nonprobability sample? a. The population consists of the class of entering freshmen at a local college.
> In an experiment examining human memory, two groups of participants are used. One group is allowed 5 minutes to study a list of 40 words and the second group is given 10 minutes of study time for the same list of words. Then, both groups are given a memo
> Dr. Jones conducted a study examining the relationship between the amount of sugar in a child’s diet and the activity level of the child. A sample of thirty four-year-old children from a local preschool was used in the study. Sugar consumption was measur
> Explain how the enforcement of confidentiality benefits both the participants and the researcher.
> A researcher evaluates a new cholesterol medication by measuring cholesterol levels for a group of patients before they begin taking the medication and after they have been taking the medication for eight weeks. A second researcher measures quality of li
> Under what circumstances would it be difficult to interpret the results of a multiple-baseline design?
> Explain why plagiarism is unethical.
> What is the general purpose of a manipulation check?
> What is the general purpose for using a simulation or a field study for experimental research?
> Describe how the cliché “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink” can be used to explain a person’s behavior.
> A researcher finds that college students are more anxious near final exams in December than at the beginning of the semester in September. However, it is not clear whether the anxiety is caused by exams or by the change in season. Does this study have a
> A researcher claims that intelligence can be measured by measuring the length of a person’s right-hand ring finger. Explain why this procedure is very reliable but probably not valid.
> A researcher conducts a study with 6-year-old children at a summer computer camp for gifted children. However, the researcher suspects that different results would be obtained if the study were conducted with nongifted 6-year-old children. Does this stud
> How is the descriptive strategy different from the other four research strategies?
