PBSI 302- EXAM 3

When at least one variable is manipulated and at least one variable is measured by a researcher it is considered a what?

experiment

Lily is conducting a study testing the impact of different types of music on focus during a task. The different types of music are considered what type of variable?

Manipulated (independent)

Lily is conducting a study testing the impact of different types of music on focus during a task. Measuring participants' performance on a task is considered what type of variable?

measured (dependent)

What are the levels of an independent variable called?

conditions

Any variable that an experimenter holds constant is called a what?

control variable

"Taking notes by hand causes students to learn concepts better" is considered what type of claim?

Causal claims

- boldest type of claim

A study shows that a supportive adult figure has a positive relationship with a child having good grades in school. When the supportive adult figure (cause variable) precedes the child's good grades (effect variable), it is called what?

temporal precedence

A study shows that a supportive adult figure has a positive relationship with a child having good grades in school. Positive ____ can be shown because when the adult is more supportive, grades go up; when the adult is less supportive, grades go down

covariance

A study shows that a supportive adult figure has a positive relationship with a child having good grades in school. Being able to rule out any other variable that affects the child's grades increases the studies ____ ____?

Internal validity

Groups that systematically compare your experience to another experience is considered what?

comparison groups

Non-treatment groups and conditions are known as?

control & placebo groups

A group that receives one or more treatments is called the what?

treatment group

an experimenter's mistake in designing the independent variable is called a?

design confound

If a design confound is present and we can't support a causal claim is considered a ____ variability.

systemic

_____ variability is random or haphazard and affects both groups. It is not a confound.

Unsystematic

Health studies that recruit participants directly from clinics miss all the cases who don't attend those clinics or seek care during the study. Due to this, the sample and the target population may differ in significant ways, limiting your ability to generalize your findings. This is an example of what?

selection effects

How do you avoid selection effects?

random assignment and matched groups

When different groups of participants are placed at different

levels of the IV such as in between-subjects design or between-groups design, they are considered what type of study?

independent-groups design

When each participant is presented with all levels of the IV they are considered what type of study?

within-subject design

In which type of independent-group experiment are participants randomly assigned to IV groups and are tested on the DV just once?

posttest only

Which research method involves measuring a variable before and after a treatment to determine if the treatment had an effect?

pretest/posttest design

A study is done where researchers test the effects of different caffeine levels on participants' cognitive performance, where each participant is tested multiple times, once after consuming a low dose of caffeine, a medium dose, and a high dose, with their performance being measured at each level.

This is what type of design?

repeated-measures design

A study was done investigating infant cognition, in which infants were shown two faces at the same time, a male face and a female face; an experimenter recorded which face they looked at the longest.

This is what type of design?

Concurrent-measures designs

What are subtle cues within a research study that can unintentionally signal to participants what the researcher expects them to do?

demand characteristics

When a participant performs better on a task later in an experiment simply because they have practiced it by doing it earlier, this is called ____ ____

Practice effect

When a participant performs worse due to fatigue or boredom from repeated tasks, this is called?

fatigue effect

You drink regular coffee then take a test. Right after you drink decaf coffee and take a test. However, the effects of caffeine are still present from the first test and affect the second test.

What is this an example of?

Carryover effects

When researchers divide participants into groups and present the conditions in different orders to each group, like half of the participants experiencing condition A first followed by condition B, while the other half experiences condition B first followed by condition A. This is known as?

Counterbalancing

when a researcher ensures that every possible order of conditions in a study is experienced by an equal number of participants this is called?

full counterbalancing

when only some of the possible condition orders are used on participants in a study, this is known as?

partial counterbalancing

A study investigating the effect of a new diet pill on weight loss, where the participants in the "diet pill" group are also unknowingly exercising more regularly than the control group, making it difficult to determine if the weight loss is due to the pill or the increased exercise, is an example of what?

design confound

A phone poll only reaches people who have phones. If only wealthy people have phones, then being wealthy is correlated with ever being polled in the first place. This is an example of what?

selection effect

Asking someone about their overall satisfaction with a product before asking about specific features of that product influences their response to the feature questions, as their initial overall impression might color their perception of individual aspects. This is an example of what?

order effects

A researcher studying the effectiveness of a new learning program for young children observes significant improvement in their test scores over time, but this improvement could be simply due to the children naturally maturing and developing cognitive abilities rather than the program itself. This is an example of what threat to internal validity?

maturation threat

If a study on stress levels is conducted during a major political election, the heightened stress from the election could impact participants' results, making it hard to isolate the effects of the study intervention. This is an example of what threat to internal validity?

History threat

when a researcher studies the effectiveness of a new therapy on a group of patients with extremely high anxiety scores, and observes an apparent improvement in their anxiety levels after treatment, but this improvement could be partially due to the fact that their scores were simply naturally regressing towards the mean (average anxiety level), rather than the therapy itself being entirely responsible for the change. This is an example of what threat to internal validity?

Regression threat

A reduction in the number of participants from pretest to posttest is known as what threat to internal validity?

attrition threat

Suppose participants become more familiar with the measurement instrument after repeated administrations. In that case, they may change their responses based on their prior experiences, rather than the actual intervention or treatment being studied. This is an example of what threat to internal validity?

Testing threat (practice or fatigue)

In longitudinal studies, researchers measure participants' performance or behavior over time to assess changes. If the tests or questionnaires used to measure outcomes change between time points, this can create a _______ threat.

instrumentation

When researchers expectations influence how they interpret the results, it is known as?

Observer Bias

Subtle cues within a research study that can unintentionally signal to participants what the researcher expects them to do, potentially influencing their behavior and responses to fit those expectations, thus compromising the validity of the study results, is known as what?

demand characteristics

A patient may associate a placebo pill that looks like pain medication with a decrease in pain. This association can lead to the patient conditioning themselves to expect a similar response in the future. This is known as what?

Placebo effect

Researchers are testing a new math tutoring program on two groups of students. One group is from a high socioeconomic background with access to advanced learning resources at home, while the other group is from a lower socioeconomic background with limited access. If a popular educational TV show on basic math concepts airs during the study period, the high socioeconomic group might benefit more from this exposure, potentially confounding the results of the tutoring program. This is known as what threat to internal validity?

selection- history threat

in a study on a new depression treatment, if individuals with less severe depression are more likely to drop out, the final sample may only represent those with more severe depression, making the treatment appear more effective than it actually is. This is known as what threat to internal validity?

selection-attrition threat

a situation where a study finds no significant difference between groups on a dependent variable because the manipulation of the independent variable was not strong enough to produce a noticeable effect is known as what?

a weak manipulation

_____ _____ occurs when a measurement tool or method is not sensitive enough to detect meaningful changes or differences in a psychological variable

Insensitive measures

If 90% of students score 98 out of 100 on a midterm math exam, the exam was likely too easy. Most scores are clustered at the high end. This is known as what effect?

ceiling effect

The distribution of scores on an ability test will be skewed if the test is much too difficult for many of the respondents and many of them obtain zero scores. The scores are clustered at the low end. This is known as what effect?

floor effect

Researchers are trying to induce a specific mood (like happiness or sadness) in participants by showing them videos; after watching the video, they would ask participants to rate how happy or sad they currently feel, to verify that the video successfully manipulated their mood as intended, allowing them to confidently interpret the results of the study related to that mood state. The researchers are performing a what by asking the participants to rate how they feel?

manipulation check

When a participant on a depression scale reports a slightly higher score than their true level of depression due to a combination of factors like misunderstanding a question, feeling stressed during the test, or simply misinterpreting the wording, leading to a discrepancy between their "true" depression level and the measured score on the test, this is known as what type of error?

measurement error

In the money and mood study, Michelle is a more cheerful person so giving her money had no effect on her mood. Candance, however, is a more unhappy person so giving her just $1 cheered her up. The effect of the money on each participant is most likely attributed to what?

individual differences

In the money and mood study, giving money in a distracting environment where other factors might be more likely to impact mood than $1 is known as what?

situation noise

The likelihood that a study will yield a statistically significant result when the IV really has an effect is known as what?

Power

- Studies with a lot of power are more likely to detect true differences.

When the effect of one IV depends on the level of another IV it is known as?

interaction effect

When asked the question "Do you like your food hot or cold?", your answer usually depends on what food you are eating. If it is ice cream, you want it cold, if it is pancakes you want it hot. This is an example of what type of interaction?

Crossover Interaction

- 2 IV: the food and temp

When asked the question "Does your dog sit on command?", your answer may be "Only when I ask him to sit and I have a treat in my hand". This is an example of what type of interaction?

Spreading Interaction

- 2 IV: saying nothing or saying "sit", and holding a treat or not

an experiment in which there are

two or more IVs. The IVs are also called factors.

Factorial design

The unique conditions created by the IVs in factorial design

Cell

Examining whether the effect of an independent variable on a dependent variable is influenced by the level of a third variable (moderator)

Interactions show moderators (in a factorial design)

- Body weight moderates the

effect of alcohol on

aggression

When a researcher does not have full experimental control, cannot randomly assign participants to levels of the IV, and rely on an already scheduled event to study, this is known as what kind of experiment?

quasi experiment

students in one school are given a pretest on their attitudes toward drugs, then are exposed to an anti-drug program, and finally, are given a posttest. Students in a similar school are given the pretest, not exposed to an anti-drug program, and finally, are given a posttest. This is an example of what type of design?

Nonequivalent control group design: Pretest/posttest

A researcher compare a class of third graders who are taught fractions using a new method to another class of third graders who are not taught using the new method via a posttest of what the students learned. This is an example of what type of design?

Nonequivalent control group design: Posttest only

Researchers study the impact of a new public health policy, like a smoking ban in restaurants, by tracking the number of smoking-related complaints in a city before and after the policy is implemented, collecting data on complaints at regular intervals throughout both periods to see if there's a noticeable change in the trend after the policy goes into effect. This is an example of what type of design?

Interrupted time-series design

- a research method that involves collecting data before and after an intervention to determine the intervention's effect

A researcher studies the impact of a new school-wide bullying prevention program by comparing the disciplinary records of students in the school implementing the program (treatment group) with those in a similar school that did not implement the program (control group), by tracking both groups' disciplinary data for several months before and after the intervention was introduced in the treatment school. This is an example of what type of design?

Nonequivalent control group interrupted time series design

In the cosmetics surgery example study, financial concerns may have been a concern between those who got it and those who did not. How do you fix this to maintain internal validity of the study?

researchers can create matched groups or do a waitlist design where all Ps plan to receive treatment but are randomly assigned different times

The cosmetic surgery study had a pretest and posttest. Because surgery participants improved over time, surgery might be the reason for the improvement, or the improvement might be due to maturation. How do you fix this to maintain internal validity of the study?

include a comparison group to see if the Ps who received treatment actually improved over time

In the suicide study between suicide rates and the release of the "13 reasons why" series, perhaps suicide rates increased around April 2017 not because of 13 reasons why but because of another well-publicized event, like a celeb dying by suicide. How do you fix this to maintain internal validity of the study?

Look at archival records to see what other events happened during the time period of the study

In the cosmetic surgery study, the question is raised about whether people who dropped out of the study were lower in self-esteem at baseline, thus inflating the results. How do you fix this to maintain internal validity of the study?

The researchers used a missing values analysis to see if participants who dropped out of the study were systematically different from those who completed the study using the available data (they weren't)

Real world settings can enhance ____ ____ in quasi experiments because of the likelihood that patterns observed will be able to be generalized to other circumstances and other individuals.

external validity

Many questions of interest to researcher would be unethical to study in a true experiment due to complications with ____ but can be studied in a quasi experiment

ethics

Usually, quasi experiments show excellent ___ ___ of the IV

Construct validity

What determines statistical validity of a quasi experiment?

how large the group differences were (effect size), whether results were statistically significant, and effect size

Study in which a practitioner or researcher observes behavior for an extended baseline period before beginning a treatment or other intervention to evaluate the efficacy of a treatment of intervention. This is known as what type of design?

stable baseline design

A study in which researchers stagger their intro of an intervention across a variety of individuals, times, or situations to rule out alternative explanations. This is known as what type of design?

Multiple baseline design

a researcher observes a problem behavior both with and without treatment, but takes the treatment away for a while (the reversal period) to see whether the problem behavior returns (reverses). They subsequently reintroduce the treatment to see if the behavior improves again. This is known as what type of design?

Reversal design

___ ___ can be very high in a small-N design if the study is carefully designed

Internal validity

___ ___ is easy to question in small-N designs but the point of the study is not to generalize the population, it is to study an anomaly

External validity

___ ___ can be high in small-N designs if definitions and observations are precise and you are careful about defining your variables well

Construct validity

Statistical validity of small-N designs

Due to their unique design, small-N studies often do not rely on traditional parametric statistics to draw their conclusions