Review quiz 5

Which of the following is an example of a multivariate design?

A study examining how job satisfaction and organizational commitment jointly predict turnover intention.

Which of the following studies is an example of a longitudinal design?

Dr. Benson’s study in which she measured people’s spatial manipulation ability in August and measured their ability again in May after they had taken two semesters of art classes

__________ can be examined in both simple bivariate designs and longitudinal designs.

Cross-sectional correlation

When conducting longitudinal research, researchers typically find __________ to be the most interesting.

cross-lag correlations

Cross-lag correlations are NOT helpful for answering/addressing which rule of causation?

Are there third variables that could explain the relationship?

Dr. Farah is an educational psychologist who is interested in studying the potential causal relationship between doing homework and academic achievement. In January, Dr. Farah has her students report their fall GPA (a measure of academic achievement) and estimate how many hours they spent doing homework during a typical week in the fall semester. In May, Dr. Farah measures the same variables again (the estimated number of hours spent doing homework during a typical week in the spring semester and students’ spring GPAs). She finds the following correlations:

	Variable A	Variable B	Correlation Coefficient
Correlation 1	Fall number of hours of homework	Fall semester GPA	.83*
Correlation 2	Fall number of hours of homework	Spring number of hours of homework	.36*
Correlation 3	Fall number of hours of homework	Spring semester GPA	.69*
Correlation 4	Fall semester GPA	Spring number of hours of homework	.18
Correlation 5	Fall semester GPA	Spring semester GPA	.45*
Correlation 6	Spring number of hours of homework	Spring semester GPA	.80*
			*Indicates a statistically significant relationship.

What type of design is this study?

longitudinal design

Dr. Farah is an educational psychologist who is interested in studying the potential causal relationship between doing homework and academic achievement. In January, Dr. Farah has her students report their fall GPA (a measure of academic achievement) and estimate how many hours they spent doing homework during a typical week in the fall semester. In May, Dr. Farah measures the same variables again (the estimated number of hours spent doing homework during a typical week in the spring semester and students’ spring GPAs). She finds the following correlations:

	Variable A	Variable B	Correlation Coefficient
Correlation 1	Fall number of hours of homework	Fall semester GPA	.83*
Correlation 2	Fall number of hours of homework	Spring number of hours of homework	.36*
Correlation 3	Fall number of hours of homework	Spring semester GPA	.69*
Correlation 4	Fall semester GPA	Spring number of hours of homework	.18
Correlation 5	Fall semester GPA	Spring semester GPA	.45*
Correlation 6	Spring number of hours of homework	Spring semester GPA	.80*
			*Indicates a statistically significant relationship.

Which of the correlations is an autocorrelation?

Correlation 2

Dr. Farah is an educational psychologist who is interested in studying the potential causal relationship between doing homework and academic achievement. In January, Dr. Farah has her students report their fall GPA (a measure of academic achievement) and estimate how many hours they spent doing homework during a typical week in the fall semester. In May, Dr. Farah measures the same variables again (the estimated number of hours spent doing homework during a typical week in the spring semester and students’ spring GPAs). She finds the following correlations:

	Variable A	Variable B	Correlation Coefficient
Correlation 1	Fall number of hours of homework	Fall semester GPA	.83*
Correlation 2	Fall number of hours of homework	Spring number of hours of homework	.36*
Correlation 3	Fall number of hours of homework	Spring semester GPA	.69*
Correlation 4	Fall semester GPA	Spring number of hours of homework	.18
Correlation 5	Fall semester GPA	Spring semester GPA	.45*
Correlation 6	Spring number of hours of homework	Spring semester GPA	.80*
			*Indicates a statistically significant relationship.

Which of the following correlations is a cross-sectional correlation?

Correlation 6

Dr. Farah is an educational psychologist who is interested in studying the potential causal relationship between doing homework and academic achievement. In January, Dr. Farah has her students report their fall GPA (a measure of academic achievement) and estimate how many hours they spent doing homework during a typical week in the fall semester. In May, Dr. Farah measures the same variables again (the estimated number of hours spent doing homework during a typical week in the spring semester and students’ spring GPAs). She finds the following correlations:

	Variable A	Variable B	Correlation Coefficient
Correlation 1	Fall number of hours of homework	Fall semester GPA	.83*
Correlation 2	Fall number of hours of homework	Spring number of hours of homework	.36*
Correlation 3	Fall number of hours of homework	Spring semester GPA	.69*
Correlation 4	Fall semester GPA	Spring number of hours of homework	.18
Correlation 5	Fall semester GPA	Spring semester GPA	.45*
Correlation 6	Spring number of hours of homework	Spring semester GPA	.80*
			*Indicates a statistically significant relationship.

Which of the following correlations is a cross-lag correlation?

both Correlations 3 and 4

Dr. Farah is an educational psychologist who is interested in studying the potential causal relationship between doing homework and academic achievement. In January, Dr. Farah has her students report their fall GPA (a measure of academic achievement) and estimate how many hours they spent doing homework during a typical week in the fall semester. In May, Dr. Farah measures the same variables again (the estimated number of hours spent doing homework during a typical week in the spring semester and students’ spring GPAs). She finds the following correlations:

	Variable A	Variable B	Correlation Coefficient
Correlation 1	Fall number of hours of homework	Fall semester GPA	.83*
Correlation 2	Fall number of hours of homework	Spring number of hours of homework	.36*
Correlation 3	Fall number of hours of homework	Spring semester GPA	.69*
Correlation 4	Fall semester GPA	Spring number of hours of homework	.18
Correlation 5	Fall semester GPA	Spring semester GPA	.45*
Correlation 6	Spring number of hours of homework	Spring semester GPA	.80*
			*Indicates a statistically significant relationship.

 Based on her pattern of correlations, which of the following can Dr. Farah safely conclude

Because Correlation 3 is significant but Correlation 4 is not, Dr. Farah has evidence that increased homework comes before academic achievement.

Dr. Farah is an educational psychologist who is interested in studying the potential causal relationship between doing homework and academic achievement. In January, Dr. Farah has her students report their fall GPA (a measure of academic achievement) and estimate how many hours they spent doing homework during a typical week in the fall semester. In May, Dr. Farah measures the same variables again (the estimated number of hours spent doing homework during a typical week in the spring semester and students’ spring GPAs). She finds the following correlations:

	Variable A	Variable B	Correlation Coefficient
Correlation 1	Fall number of hours of homework	Fall semester GPA	.83*
Correlation 2	Fall number of hours of homework	Spring number of hours of homework	.36*
Correlation 3	Fall number of hours of homework	Spring semester GPA	.69*
Correlation 4	Fall semester GPA	Spring number of hours of homework	.18
Correlation 5	Fall semester GPA	Spring semester GPA	.45*
Correlation 6	Spring number of hours of homework	Spring semester GPA	.80*
			*Indicates a statistically significant relationship.

 Imagine that Dr. Farah noted a cyclical, reinforcing relationship between homework and academic achievement. For this to be case, which of the following correlations would need to be significant?

Correlations 3 and 4

Dr. Farah is an educational psychologist who is interested in studying the potential causal relationship between doing homework and academic achievement. In January, Dr. Farah has her students report their fall GPA (a measure of academic achievement) and estimate how many hours they spent doing homework during a typical week in the fall semester. In May, Dr. Farah measures the same variables again (the estimated number of hours spent doing homework during a typical week in the spring semester and students’ spring GPAs). She finds the following correlations:

	Variable A	Variable B	Correlation Coefficient
Correlation 1	Fall number of hours of homework	Fall semester GPA	.83*
Correlation 2	Fall number of hours of homework	Spring number of hours of homework	.36*
Correlation 3	Fall number of hours of homework	Spring semester GPA	.69*
Correlation 4	Fall semester GPA	Spring number of hours of homework	.18
Correlation 5	Fall semester GPA	Spring semester GPA	.45*
Correlation 6	Spring number of hours of homework	Spring semester GPA	.80*
			*Indicates a statistically significant relationship.

A colleague of Dr. Farah’s asks her why she did not simply conduct an experiment. Which of the following is a probable reason for Dr. Farah’s choice not to conduct an experiment

It would be unethical to manipulate whether students are told to do homework for a semester.

Which of the following are limitations of longitudinal designs?
(Select all that apply.)

Participant attrition (dropout) can bias the results.

Time itself may act as a confounding variable.

Secular trends may influence the results.

Longitudinal studies often require a long time to complete.

In a 10-year longitudinal study on aging and health, researchers followed a group of adults aged 65 and older. Over time, participants with poorer health were more likely to pass away, and the remaining sample became increasingly composed of healthier individuals. As a result, the study appeared to show that health improved with age.

What is the most appropriate explanation for this issue?

Selective survival

Which of the following is an example of a time-lag design?

A study measuring job satisfaction of 30-year-old employees in 2010, 2020, and 2030 using different samples each time.

Researchers are interested in how job satisfaction changes with age. They begin by selecting three age groups (25, 35, and 45 years old) in 2015. They then follow each group over time and measure job satisfaction again in 2020 and 2025.

What type of research design is this?

Cross-sequential design

Which popular media headline might suggest that a multiple regression has been used?

“Vacations are important for happiness, even when length of vacation is controlled for.”

In a multiple regression design, __________ variable is to dependent variable as __________ variable is to independent variable.

criterion; predictor

All of the following are true of betas and correlation coefficients EXCEPT

betas describe the relationship between two variables exactly as correlations coefficients do.

Which of the following is a reason why multiple regression designs are inferior to experimental designs?

They can only control for third variables that are measured.

Dr. Finkel is a social psychologist who studies romantic relationships. Several researchers have found that there is a link between income and marital satisfaction (e.g., Dakin & Wampler, 2012). Dr. Finkel is curious as to whether there is a causal link between the two variables, such that having a higher income causes higher levels of marital satisfaction. He is confident that he cannot reasonably or ethically manipulate people’s income level, so he decides to use a multivariate design. He is also curious as to whether there is a causal link between these two variables or if two other variables (number of arguments and life satisfaction) can explain the relationship. He measures his three variables in a sample of 124 married couples recruited from a local community center. Below are his results:

DV: Marital Satisfaction
Variable	Beta ()	Significance (p)
Income	.69	.03
Number of arguments	–.73	.01
Life satisfaction	.13	.81

 

Given Dr. Finkel’s design, which of the following issues is his study best able to address?

the issue of possible third variables

Dr. Finkel is a social psychologist who studies romantic relationships. Several researchers have found that there is a link between income and marital satisfaction (e.g., Dakin & Wampler, 2012). Dr. Finkel is curious as to whether there is a causal link between the two variables, such that having a higher income causes higher levels of marital satisfaction. He is confident that he cannot reasonably or ethically manipulate people’s income level, so he decides to use a multivariate design. He is also curious as to whether there is a causal link between these two variables or if two other variables (number of arguments and life satisfaction) can explain the relationship. He measures his three variables in a sample of 124 married couples recruited from a local community center. Below are his results:

DV: Marital Satisfaction
Variable	Beta ()	Significance (p)
Income	.69	.03
Number of arguments	–.73	.01
Life satisfaction	.13	.81

 

Which of the following can be concluded based on the results of Dr. Finkel’s study?

The relationship between life satisfaction and marital satisfaction has the weakest effect size of all of the results.

A researcher has examined a variety of correlational studies that point to a causal relationship between two variables. All of the studies have found a positive relationship between the two variables, but for ethical reasons, no experiments have been conducted. Using an approach of pattern and parsimony, the researcher may begin to make a causal claim by doing which of the following?

specifying a mechanism or explanation for the causal relationship

Adding several variables to a regression analysis can help do which of the following?

control for several variables at once

The degree to which a good scientific theory provides the simplest explanation of some phenomenon is known as

parsimony.

Such topics as the link between media and aggression and smoking and lung cancer have been studied with a variety of methods and by a variety of researchers and have all reached similar conclusions. This is an example of which of the following?

pattern and parsimony

A regression table in an empirical journal article includes columns for betas and p values. What can you determine from p values that are less than .05?

The 95% CI for that beta does not contain zero.

Professor Singh creates a survey to measure how happy his students are with his teaching this semester. He is teaching two classes: Psychology and Law and Introduction to Neuroscience. He writes the following questions for his survey:

A. What was your favorite part of this class?

B. Please rate how much you agree with the following statement using the scale below: This was one of my favorite classes all semester.
1 2 3 4 5
Strongly agree, Agree, Neither agree nor disagree, Disagree, Strongly disagree

C. Which of the following is most true of you?
a. I am a very serious student.
b. I try only as hard as I have to.

D. How easy did you feel this class was?
1 2 3 4 5
Easy Hard

 

Which of the questions above is an example of a forced-choice question?

question C

Professor Singh creates a survey to measure how happy his students are with his teaching this semester. He is teaching two classes: Psychology and Law and Introduction to Neuroscience. He writes the following questions for his survey:

A. What was your favorite part of this class?

B. Please rate how much you agree with the following statement using the scale below: This was one of my favorite classes all semester.
1 2 3 4 5
Strongly agree, Agree, Neither agree nor disagree, Disagree, Strongly disagree

C. Which of the following is most true of you?
a. I am a very serious student.
b. I try only as hard as I have to.

D. How easy did you feel this class was?
1 2 3 4 5
Easy Hard

 

Which of the questions above is an example of a question that uses a Likert scale?

question B

In developing a measure of “need for cognition” (the degree to which people like thinking and problem-solving), Dr. Jonason asks his participants to rate their agreement with the following statement: “I frequently solve and enjoy solving crossword puzzles and Sudoku puzzles.” What is the problem with this question?

It is a double-barreled question.

Why are double-barreled questions problematic?

They may have poor construct validity.

In his measure of “need for cognition” (the degree to which people like thinking and problem-solving), Dr. Jonason asks his participants to rate their agreement with the following statement: “I have never not enjoyed thinking.” What is the problem with this question?

It has a double negative.

Which of the following is the most direct way to control for question order effects?

Prepare different versions of the survey, varying the order of the questions.

Dr. Gore is conducting a survey examining people’s opinions toward funding for collegiate athletics on his campus. He notices that several participants agree with all 12 questions. This is most likely due to

acquiescence.

How do reverse-worded items address the issue of shortcuts in surveys?

They slow down readers, making them answer more carefully.

Which of the following statements is true of observational data?

Observational measures can be used to make frequency claims.

A study by Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) involved telling teachers that some of their students were “bloomers” and would achieve rapid academic success within the next year. In fact, these students were no different than any of the other students in the class. At the end of the year, the “bloomers” showed more gains in IQ than the other students. It appeared that the teacher had unintentionally treated the “bloomers” in special ways. This is an example of which of the following?

observer effects

Masked or blind study designs are designed to deal with

observer bias

Dr. Ewell, a developmental psychologist, is planning on conducting a study that involves watching children play together to determine how sharing behavior occurs in same-sex friend pairs compared to opposite-sex friend pairs.

Dr. Ewell is concerned that the children will behave differently because of the presence of research assistants. He is concerned about

reactivity.

Dr. Ewell, a developmental psychologist, is planning on conducting a study that involves watching children play together to determine how sharing behavior occurs in same-sex friend pairs compared to opposite-sex friend pairs.

Dr. Ewell is concerned that the children will behave differently because of the presence of research assistants. Which of the following could he do to address this concern?

hide a video camera in the daycare center and record the children playing without them knowing

Dr. Ewell, a developmental psychologist, is planning on conducting a study that involves watching children play together to determine how sharing behavior occurs in same-sex friend pairs compared to opposite-sex friend pairs.

Dr. Ewell decides to collect his data at a neighborhood park. He has his two research assistants pose as a married couple having a picnic. While having their picnic, they take detailed records of the sharing behavior of the children and note whether the pairs are same sex or opposite sex. This technique is known as

unobtrusive observation.

Unobtrusive observation is done to counteract which of the following?

reactivity

Dr. Jewell is interested in measuring people’s attitudes toward proposed tax cuts. One of his items reads, “People who support cutting taxes are not well informed about how the government works.” What is the problem with this question?

It is a leading question.

Which of the following questions is most likely to result in a socially desirable answer?

“Have you ever sent a ‘sext’ (a sexually explicit message or photo)?”

Why might question order affect how people respond to a survey or poll?

People may try to appear consistent.

A researcher wants to know what people really do, not what they think they do. Which method would you advise him to use?

Behavioral observations

If a question has response options such as strongly agree, agree, neither agree nor disagree, disagree, and strongly disagree, this is known as a(n)

Likert scale.

Which of the following hypotheses would be best tested with a survey?

College students with part-time jobs have high self-esteem.

If a question has response options that are anchored with adjectives, this is known as a(n)

semantic differential format.

Which the following statements are correct about the question format of survey and polls?

Open-ended questions usually include rich and spontaneous information.

Negatively worded questions have low construct validity because

they capture people’s ability to understand the question rather than their true opinions.

Using a computerized measure of implicit opinions, such as the Implicit Association Test, is a way to address

socially desirable responding.

What type of question is the following item? “What are your views on the prevalence of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder among school-aged children?”

open-ended

Alex has created a questionnaire to assess attitudes toward fracking. His questions are all Likert-type rating scales that range from 1=strongly agree to 5=strongly disagree. After collecting data, he notices that most participants selected 3=neither agree nor disagree for most of the items. This is an example of

fence sitting.

Which of the following is NOT necessarily careless responding?

Giving extreme responses because of strong opinions