Research Methods and Statistics Vocabulary Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards covering experimental design, scientific method variables, and descriptive statistics concepts based on the lecture transcript.

Experimental Group

The group in an experiment that receives the change or treatment being tested.

Control Group

The non-change group in an experiment used for comparison.

Independent Variable

The specific change introduced and manipulated in an experiment.

Dependent Variable

The measured outcome or result in an experiment.

Random Selection

A process where every individual in a population has an equal possibility of being selected for a study.

Random Assignment

The procedure of randomly placing participants into different experimental groups.

Single-Blind Study

An experimental procedure where the participant does not know which group or condition they are in.

Double-Blind Study

An experimental procedure where both the study administrator and the participant do not know who is receiving which condition.

Central Tendency

Statistical measures representing the center of a set of data.

Mean

The calculated average of a data set.

Median

The middle score in an ordered data set.

Mode

The score or value that appears most often in a distribution.

Range

The difference between the highest and lowest values in a data set.

Standard Deviation

A measure of how spread out data scores are relative to the average.

Normal Curve

A perfectly symmetrical distribution curve representing data where mean, median, and mode align at the center.

Distribution Skew

The asymmetry of a data distribution, where the direction of the tail determines whether it is negatively skewed (left skew) or positively skewed (right skew).