Ap Psychology Unit 0 Ethics and Stats ID Terms

Quantitative Research

Research that provides data that can be expressed with numbers, such as ranks or scales.

Qualitative Research

research that relies on what is seen in field or naturalistic settings more than on statistical data

Likert Scales

ordinal-level scales containing seven points on an agree or disagree continuum

Institutional Review

a study is examined for ethical concerns by a committee knowledgeable about research and clinical practice

Informed Consent

An ethical principle requiring that research participants be told enough to enable them to choose whether they wish to participate.

Protect from Harm

Participants should be free from physical and psychological harm in research

Confidentiality

a principle of professional ethics requiring providers of mental health care or medical care to limit the disclosure of a patient's identity, their condition or treatment, and any data entrusted to professionals during assessment, diagnosis, and treatment

Research Confederates

commonly employed in psychology experiments to secretly participate along with actual subjects

Debriefing

a formal version of providing emotional and psychological support immediately following a traumatic event

IRB (Institutional Review Board)

federally-mandated, locally-administered groups charged with evaluating risks and benefits of human participant research at their institution

Descriptive Statistics

used to organize or summarize a set of data. Examples include percentages, measures of central tendency (mean, median, mode), measures of dispersion (range, standard deviation, variance), and correlation coefficients

Histogram

used to portray the (grouped) frequency distribution of a variable at the interval or ratio level of measurement

Scatterplot

a visual representation of the relationships or associations between two numerical variables, which are represented as points (or dots), each plotted at a horizontal axis (y-axis) and vertical axis (y-axis)

Measure of Central Tendency

a statistic that identifies a single value as representative of the entire distribution of data. The three measures of central tendency in psychology are the mean, the median, and the mode of a sample

Mode

the most often occurring number in a data set

Mean

the average value in a set of data

Median

the middle of a set of numbers

Percentile Rank

the percentage of individuals in the distribution with scores at or below the particular value

Skewed Distribution

one where frequency data is not spread evenly (i.e. normally distributed); the data is clustered at one end

Bimodal Distribution

a continuous probability distribution with two different modes

Measures of Variation

range, interquartile range, variance, and standard deviation

Range

the difference between your highest and lowest values

Standard Deviation

a measure of dispersion or scatter in a data set relative to the data's central mean value

Normal Curve

a theoretical, bell-shaped distribution thought to describe the frequency of occurrence of many natural phenomena, including such varied things as height, blood pressure, reaction time, and scores on cognitive tests

Inferential Statistics

provides data from a sample that a researcher studies which enables him to make conclusions about the population

Meta-Analysis

an objective examination of published data from many studies of the same research topic

Statistical Significance

used by research psychologists to indicate whether or not the difference between groups can be attributed to chance or if the difference is likely the result of experimental influences

P-Value

a number describing how likely it is that your data would have occurred by random chance

Effect Size

a quantitative measure of the magnitude of the experimental effect

Reliability

the consistency of the findings or results of a psychology research study