Research Methods 2 Exam 1

Scientific Method

A systematic step-by-step process used to gain knowledge and answer questions

• Making observations and asking question

• Making a prediction based on these observations

• Conducting a study to get results to support/refute

• Analyzing results to support or reject your hypothesis

Institutional Review Board (IRB)

A committee established to review and approve research projects involving human subjects

Informed consent

A written document that outlines the experiment for participants’ consent

Treatment of participants

Protection from undue harm/minimize harm, given necessary information about study, voluntary consent, ability to withdraw at any time, privacy and confidentiality

Construct/content validity

The degree to which the conceptual variable (or construct) that is presumably measured or studied is what is claimed. In other words, how well a study measures the constructs it was designed to measure

Criterion validity

The extent to which a test/survey accurately predicts an outcome it claims to measure. For example, does your SAT score predict your college GPA

Concurrent validity

The degree to which a test/survey measure the same thing as do other known instruments. For example, if you created a scale to measure stress for your project, does your new survey correlate significantly with the Perceived Stress Scale?

Internal validity

The degree to which an experiment is done well (all confounds and other possible influences ruled out), so the researcher can correctly claim causality. Without internal validity, we cannot claim a casual relationship between an IV or DV

External validity

The degree to which inferences from a scientific study can be generalized to other situations or other people. Without external validity, we cannot generalize findings from a study to a “real world” population or setting.

Operational definition

Explicit description of how a construct will be measured or observed. For example stress may be operationalized via cortisol levels

What are inferential statistics

Allow us to infer properties about/generalize findings to the population (t-test, correlation, ANOVA, etc)

What are descriptive statistics?

Provide information about your sample, including central tendency (mean, median, mode) and variability/dispersion (Range, SD)

What is a Type II error?

When there really is a difference in the population but based on my sample I incorrectly said there is not a difference (false negative). OR failing to reject the null hypothesis when it is actually false

Type I error

Rejected the null hypothesis when it is actually true (false positive)

I correlate hours spent in meditation per

week (measured in minutes) with

perceived stress (higher numbers indicate

more stress). I found r = -.45, p = .02.

What can I conclude?

The two variables are significantly and negatively associated (the more minutes spent meditating, the less stress reported)

Below is the information about an article.

Write the citation in APA style (must be

perfect for 1 point)

Burke, S. & Coolidge, R. (2013). Sleep

duration impacts well-being among

college students. Journal of Sleep

Research, 10, 5-9. (remember to include a hanging indention)

Doctoral student Elle Woods conducts a

study on academic performance among

law students. She predicts that blondes will

perform better on the LSAT exam than

brunettes. What analysis will she use to

test her hypothesis?

Independent samples t-test

Beneficence

Physical/mental health and living conditions

Justice

Calls for balance between the kinds of people who participate in research and the kinds who benefit from it

Autonomy/respect for persons

The intrinsic value of all people (informed consent: risk/reward)

Null hypothesis (Ho):

Assumes the “status quo” claiming any observed differences are due to chance. Example: There is no difference in memory recall between group A and B

Alternative Hypothesis (Ha)

Suggests a specific relationship or effect that the researcher expects to find. Example “Group A will have higher memory recall than group B)

Dr. Donald “Ducky” Mallard is interested in

examining whether political beliefs (higher

scores meaning more liberal views) differ

among residents of DC, North Carolina,

and California. What analysis will he use to

answer his research question?

ANOVA (Independent T-Test would be tested if F test significant)