Research Psychology Exam 2

What value of P determines if an effect was significant.

If P <.05 its significant

Table

A list of data

Graph

Plots the data

Where are the two quickest places to find a summary of the findings in a paper

Abstract or Conclusion

Validity

The truth or accuracy of information

What are the four forms of validity?

Construct, Internal, External, Statistical

What is Construct Validity?

How well a set of indicators represents or reflects a concept that is not directly measurable.

Internal Validity

The extent to which you are sure the independent variable is the only thing that could have caused changes to the dependent variable

External Validity

Extent to which results generalize

Statistical Conclusion Validity

How likely is it that the effects observed could be produced by chance alone.

What Validity’s can Frequency Claim have?

Frequency Claim can have Construct, Statistical Conclusion and External Validity

What Validity can Association Claim have?

Association Claim can have Construct, Statistical Conclusion, and External Validity

What Validities can a Causal Claim have?

Causal Claim can have Construct, Statistical Conclusion, External, and Internal Validity.

What relationship is represented in this graph, and what is the definition?

Positive relationship, As X increased so does Y

What relationship is represented in this graph, and what is the definition

Negative Relationship, as X increases, Y decreases

What relationship is represented in this graph, and what is the definition?

Curvilinear Relationship, as X increases so does Y until a point in which is decreases

What relationship is represented in this graph, and what is the definition?

No correlation. There is no relationship and results are scattered

What are the three methods for assessing reliability?

Test-retest, Internal consistency, Interrater reliability

What is test-retest relability?

Given the the test twice, how close are the answers

What is Internal Consistency?

Used to assess the consistency of results across items within a test. Measured by Cronbach’s alpha

What is Interrater Reliability?

Used to assess the degree to which different raters give consistent estimates of the same phenomenon. Measured by Cohen’s Kappa.

What does Cronbach’s alpha represent? What does it mean and what is a good number?

Represents inter-item reliability of a scale. 0-1. 1 means high reliability. .8 and greater is good.

What does Cohens Kappa measure?

Inter-rater reliability

What is Face Validity

The degree to which a test, survey, or measurement looks like it measures what it is supposed to measure.

What is Content Validity

The degree to which a test, survey, or measurement tool fully covers all relevant parts of the subject or construct it measures.

What is Predictive Validity?

The degree to which a test, survey, or measurement tool forecasts a future outcome

What is Concurrent Validity

The degree to which a test, survey, or measurement tool are related to a criterion measured at the same time

What is Convergent Validity?

The degree to which a test, survey, or measurement tool are related to other measures of the same construct or related construct

What is Discriminant Validity?

The degree to which a test, survey, or measurement tool are not related to measures that are theoretically different.

What is a reverse-coded question?

Questions that make you reverse the number correlated with the answer.

What are some issues with survey question designs? (4)

They can be biased, ask double-barreled questions, the wording can be confusing, and participants can not get clarification, and conversational norms.

What are double barreled questions

Questions that ask two questions at once

What is closed questions?

Questions that limit the response of participants

What are open questions?

Questions that allow participants to answer whatever they want.

What are advantages and disadvantages of closed questions?

Responses are limited and may not be exactly accurate, and can be biased and hard to answer, but they are easy to code.

What are advantages and disadvantages of open questions?

Allow for non-biased answers but are hard to code and interpret

What are the costs and benefits of including a Don’t Know option?

Increases data honesty but encourages lazy answering.

What are primacy effects?

A cognitive bias that causes people to remember the first piece of information better than the rest.

What are receny effects?

A cognitive bias that causes people to remember the last piece of information better than the rest.

When does response order have less of an effect?

When participants carefully evaluate all choices.

What type of graph is this?

Histogram, It is a bar graph that depicts a frequency distribution.

What are the three measures of central tendency?

Mean, Median, and Mode

What is Mean?

The average of all the data. Add all the numbers, then divide by the number of data points.

What is Median?

The exact middle value. Arrange the numbers in order from least to most then find the center value.

What is Mode?

The value that appears the most frequently. Count how many times each data point appears.

What does it mean if the data set is skewed?

The data set values cluster more to one side like this:

What type of Skew is this? (Positive, Negative, or Normal)

Positively Skewed, All the data is clustered on the left side.

What type of Skew is this? (Positive, Negative, or Normal)

Negatively Skewed. All the data is clustered on the right

What type of skew is this? (Positive, negative, or Normal)

Normal distribution. It not skewed at all and is a normal bell curve

What is Simple Random Sampling and when should you use it?

A basic probability method where every individual in a population has an equal and independent chance of being chosen. Used when the population is uniform.

What is Stratified random sampling?

Divides the population into subgroups and randomly selects samples from each group. Used when the population is diverse and you want minority groups to be fairly represented.

What is response rate and why does it matter?

The percentage of people who finish a survey or reply to a request compared to the total number of people invited. It is importnat to know the quality of data and any biases.

What is sampling error and why does it matter?

Sampling error is the difference between the results of a sample and the actual values of the whole population. Helps determine if conclusions are important. It can be recognized by calculating the standard error.

What is measurement?

The assignment of scores to individuals so that scores represent some characteristic of individuals.

What is a psychological construct?

Variables that are not directly observable that represent an individuals mental state or experience

What is conceptual definitions?

Describes the behaviors and internal processes that make up a psychological construct, along with how it relates to other variables

What is operational definitions?

A definition of the variable in terms of precisely how it is to be measured.

What are the four levels of measurement?

Nominal, Ordinal, Interval, and Ratio

What is nominal measurement?

Used to categorize variables and involves assigning scores that are labels. Ex: Happy

What is Ordinal measurement?

Involves assigning scores so that they represent the rank or order of individuals. Ex: 1st place

What is Interval measurment?

Involves assigning scores using numerical scales in which intervals have the same interpretation throughout. Ex: Distance between 10 and 20 is the same as 50 and 60

What is Ratio measurment?

Involves assigning scores in such a way that there is a true zero point that represents complete absence. Ex: Weight, or temperature in Kelvin.

What is Reliability

Consistency across time, items, and researchers.

What are the four broad steps in the measurement process?

Conceptually defining the construct, Operationally defining the construct, Implementing the measure, and Evaluating the measure

What is Conceptually defining the construct

Create a clear and complete conceptual definition of a construct

What is operationally defining the construct

Definition of the variable in terms of how it is measured

What is implementing the measure?

Implement any measure in a way that maximizes its reliability and validity.

What is evaluating the measure?

Evaluate it more thoroughly in terms of reliability and validity

When would you use an existing measure?

It was successful in a previous research and works well measuring what you need to measure.

When would you create your own measurement?

If there is no existing measure or the existing ones are too difficult or time-consuming. Or if you are testing to see if this measure works the same as an existing measure.

What is non-experimental research?

Research that lacks the manipulation of an independent variable?

What is correlational research?

The researcher measures two variables with little to no attempt to control extraneous variables and then assesses the relationship between them.

What does the measurment of .01-1 mean relationship way (Positive, Negative, None)

Positive relationship. Strongest is 1.00

What does the measurement of -.01-(-1) mean relationship wise? (Positive, negative, None)

Negative relationship. -1.00 means strongest

What does the measurment of 0 mean relationship wise? (positive, negative, none)

No correlation?

Why does correlation not imply causation?

Directionality probelm. Two varaibles can be related because y causes X or X causes Y. Third-variable problem: Two variables are related due to third variable

What is complex correlational designs and why might researchers use this?

Research involving measuring several variables. Used to assess the validity of new psychological measures

What is a correlation matrix?

A table that displays the correlation coefficients between multiple variables.

What is partial correlation and how can it be used to control for third variables

A method of controlling extraneous variables by measuring them and including them in the statistical analysis

What is multiple regression and how can it be used to control for third variables?

Involves measuring several variables and using them to predict some outcome variable

What is qualitative research?

Research that starts less focused, collects a large amount of data from a small population, describes the data using nonstatistical techniques, and aims to understand in detail the experience of the participants

What is quantitative research?

Research starts with a focused question or hypothesis, collects small data from large population, describes data using statistical techniques, and draws a conclusion about the larger population.

What are the strengths and weaknesses of qualitative research?

Help researchers generate new and interesting research questions and hypotheses. Provides rich and detailed description of human behavior in real world contexts.

What are the strengths and weaknesses of quantitative research?

Provide precise answers to specific questions and draw general conclusions.

What is an example of qualitative research in psychology?

General relationship between unexpected suicide and how consumed the family is with trying to understand why they committed suicide.

What are the various types of observational research methods?

Naturalistic, Participant, Structured, and Case study.

What is naturalistic observation?

Involves observing peoples behavior in the environment it occurs in

What is participant observation?

The researchers become active participants in the group or situation they are studying

What is structured observation?

When a researcher makes careful observations of one or more specific behaviors in a particular setting that is more structured than the settings used in naturalistic or participant observation

What is case study?

An in-depth examination of an individual

What is survey research?

A quantitative and qualitative method that is measured using self-reports and has a lot of attention paid to the issue of sampling.

What is the cognitive process involved in responding to a survey item? (5)

Interpret the question, retrieve relevant information from memory, form a tentative judgment, convert the judgment into one of the provided responses, and edit the response if necessary.

What is context effect?

Unintended influences on respondents’ answers because of how the context appeared. Ex: Item-order effect, the order of items presented affects peoples responses.

What is probability sampling?

When researchers can specify the probability that each member of the population could be selected for the sample

What is non-probability sampling?

When researchers cant specify the probability that each member of the population could be selected for the sample.

What is sampling bias?

When a sample is selected in such a way that it is not representative of the entire population, therefor producing inaccurate results

What is non-response bias?

When there is a systematic difference between people who responded to a survey and those who didn't.

What are the four major ways to conduct a survey?

In-person, Telephone, Mail, Internet.