Research Methods Exam 3

According to Cohen's conventions for effect size, how do you describe an effect size when d \= 0.50?

moderate

Cara is running a study to examine the effect of music on mood. She randomly assigns participants to three conditions: rock, jazz, and country. She has the participants rate their mood with a short questionnaire, then listen to their assigned music for 20 minutes, and then fill out the mood questionnaire again. Which kind of design is she using?

pre/postest

pretest-posttest design

An experiment using an independent-groups design in which participants are tested on the key dependent variable twice: once before and once after exposure to the independent variable.

concurrent measures

An experiment using a within-groups design in which participants are exposed to all the levels of an independent variable at roughly the same time, and a single attitudinal or behavioral preference is the dependent variable.

repeated measures design

An experiment using a within-groups design in which participants respond to a dependent variable more than once, after exposure to each level of the independent variable.

Dr. Keller wants to test the effect of a new antianxiety medication. He recruits a group of anxious patients and randomly assigns them to two groups. One group will receive his new medication and the other will receive a sugar pill. The second group is called which of the following?

placebo group

treatment group

the participants in an experiment who are exposed to the level of the independent variable that involves a medication, therapy, or intervention

experimental group

In an experiment, the group that is exposed to the treatment, that is, to one version of the independent variable.

Eric designs a study to examine drink preferences of university freshmen. He is planning to have all the freshmen who participate in his study drink a cup of coffee, then rate their enjoyment of the coffee; then drink a cup of tea and rate their enjoyment of the tea; and, finally, drink a cup of milk and rate their enjoyment of the milk. Eric tells Theresa about the plans for his study and she says she is concerned he could have a problem with order effect in his study. Eric could fix this problem by using which of the following?

counterbalancing

Counterbalancing

A method of controlling for order effects in a repeated measure design by either including all orders of treatment or by randomly determining the order for each subject

matched groups design

each set of participants that has been matched on one or more attributes is randomly assigned the various conditions of the experiment

Random Sampling

a sample that fairly represents a population because each member has an equal chance of inclusion

Eric designs a study to examine drink preferences of university freshmen. He is planning to have all the freshmen who participate in his study drink a cup of coffee and then rate their enjoyment of the coffee; then drink a cup of tea and rate their enjoyment of the tea; and, finally, drink a cup of milk and rate their enjoyment of the milk. Which kind of design is this?

repeated measures

How many possible orders for full counterbalancing are there in a study with four conditions?

24

n a business class experiment on the endowment effect, Theo is comparing the value of a coffee mug to someone who owns it and is selling it to someone who is buying it. The endowment effect describes the tendency of sellers to value something they own more than buyers do. Participants are randomly assigned to be buyers or sellers of a mug with their first name on it. Buyers select the maximum price they would pay for the mug. Sellers select the minimum price they would accept for the mug. Which is the independent variable in this experiment?

role of the particpant

In a business class experiment on the endowment effect, Theo is comparing the value of a coffee mug to someone who owns it and is selling it to someone who is buying it. The endowment effect describes the tendency of sellers to value something they own more than buyers do. Participants are randomly assigned to be buyers or sellers of a mug with their first name on it. Buyers select the maximum price they would pay for the mug. Sellers select the minimum price they would accept for the mug. Which is the dependent variable in this experiment?

value selected for the mug

In a business class experiment on the endowment effect, Theo is comparing the value of a coffee mug to someone who owns it and is selling it to someone who is buying it. The endowment effect describes the tendency of sellers to value something they own more than buyers do. Participants are randomly assigned to be buyers or sellers of a mug with their first name on it. Buyers select the maximum price they would pay for the mug. Sellers select the minimum price they would accept for the mug. Theo controls for selection effects in which of the following ways?

random participant assignment

In an experiment, researchers do which of the following?

manipulate one variable and measure another

In psychology lab, Tetiana is conducting an experiment on depth perception using the Howard-Dolman box. Inside the box are two vertical rods and a horizontal ruler. The participant manipulates the rods until they appear to be aligned at the same distance, then the experimenter measures how far out of alignment they are. There are three conditions: left eye only, right eye only, and both eyes. Tetiana is using a repeated-measures design. Which is the independent variable in this experiment?

eyes used

In psychology lab, Tetiana is conducting an experiment on depth perception using the Howard-Dolman box. Inside the box are two vertical rods and a horizontal ruler. The participant manipulates the rods until they appear to be aligned at the same distance, then the experimenter measures how far out of alignment they are. There are three conditions: left eye only, right eye only, and both eyes. Tetiana is using a repeated-measures design. Which is the dependent variable in this experiment?

distance out of alignment of the rods

Tetiana is using a repeated-measures design. She finds d \= 1.53. Which effect size is this?

strong

In psychology lab, Tetiana is conducting an experiment on depth perception using the Howard-Dolman box. Inside the box are two vertical rods and a horizontal ruler. The participant manipulates the rods until they appear to be aligned at the same distance, then the experimenter measures how far out of alignment they are. There are three conditions: left eye only, right eye only, and both eyes. Tetiana is using a repeated-measures design. The independent variable in Tetiana's design is being manipulated in which of the following ways?

within-groups

within-groups design

an experimental design in which each participant is presented with all levels of the independent variable

Kathryn wants to control for intelligence in her study. She has a list of all the participants for her study and their IQ scores. She sorts the list of participants according to their IQ scores and then forms groups, making sure the groups are balanced in terms of IQ scores. Finally, she randomly assigns each group to one of the conditions of her study. Which kind of design is Kathryn using?

matched groups

Leigh is interested in looking at how caloric intake affects performance. She conducts a study in which participants drink a cup of water before completing a task, then eat small meal before completing the task again. Based on her study design, which of the following should she be concerned about?

practice effects

practice effects

improvement in performance resulting from opportunities to perform a behavior repeatedly so that baseline measures can be obtained.

random effects

chance mutations that do not provide any survival or reproductive advantage

selection effects

the likelihood that a non-representative sample may lead to inaccurate results

carryover effects

some form of contamination carries over from one condition to the next

Participants in a research study are given a list of words to study for 3 minutes and then, after a delay, are asked to recall the list. The length of the delay is manipulated between participants to be either 2 minutes, 5 minutes, or 10 minutes. Which of the following scenarios would present a design confound in this experiment?

All participants in the 2-minute condition are tested at 8:00 a.m., those in the 5-minute condition are tested at noon, and those in the 10-minute condition are tested at 4:00 p.m.

Participants in a research study are given a list of words to study for 3 minutes and then, after a delay, are asked to recall the list. The length of the delay is manipulated between participants to be either 2 minutes, 5 minutes, or 10 minutes. Because different groups need different amounts of time, the first 25 participants who arrive are assigned to the 10-minute group, the next 25 are assigned to the 5-minute group, and the final 25 are assigned to the 2-minute group. Which confound does this create?

selection effect

demand characteristics

cues in an experiment that tell the participant what behavior is expected

experimenter bias

a phenomenon that occurs when a researcher's expectations or preferences about the outcome of a study influence the results obtained

Which is the name for a variable the experimenter holds constant on purpose?

control variable

Which is the name for the level of the independent variable intended to represent a neutral condition?

control group

Which kind of design is an experiment in which each participant is randomly assigned to one level of the independent variable and then tested on the dependent variable once?

posttest only

Which of the following is a potential disadvantage of within-groups designs?

demand characterstics

Which of the following is a simple study that uses a separate group of participants that is generally completed before conducting the study of primary interest to confirm the effectiveness of a manipulation?

a pilot study

pilot study

a small study carried out to test the feasibility of a larger one

Latin square design

a counterbalancing strategy where each experimental condition appears at every position in the sequence order equally often

manipulation check

A measure used to determine whether the manipulation of the independent variable has had its intended effect on a subject

Which of the following is an extra dependent variable that can be used to help researchers quantify how well an experimental manipulation worked?

manipulation check

Which of the following validities is correctly matched with the technique to address concerns regarding that validity?

internal validity and random assignment

A city in California has asked Professor Rodriguez to conduct an experiment on earthquake preparedness. Professor Rodriguez will assess the preparedness of a random sample of residents in the city and the city will mail out their annual brochure on earthquake safety. Then, 2 weeks later, he will again assess the preparedness of those residents. Right after the brochures are mailed, a large earthquake is reported in Japan. Which threat to internal validity does this pose?

history

History (Validity Threat)

effect of an external event

Selection Validity

Are you measuring the right thing

Testing Validity

the extent to which a test measures what it is intended to measure

maturation threat

a threat to internal validity that occurs when an observed change in an experimental group could have emerged more or less spontaneously over time

An instructor hypothesizes that doing jumping jacks will improve his students' quiz performance. On Monday, he has his class sit in their chairs for 5 minutes before completing a multiple-choice quiz on their reading assignment. On Wednesday, he has his class do 2 minutes of jumping jacks before completing the same quiz that they took on Monday. The students performed better on the quiz on Wednesday. Which is a possible threat to internal validity in this study?

testing

As part of an experiment on the effects of behavior modeling, a set of raters are evaluating prosocial behavior in a series of videotapes of a preschool class. Initially, the raters were quite strict in their ratings, but after 3 hours of rating, their criteria had changed. Which type of threat to internal validity has occurred?

instrumentation

instrumentation threat

a threat to internal validity that occurs when a measuring instrument changes over time from having been used before

regression to the mean

If the first measurement is extreme, second measurement will be closer to the mean

Dr. Harrison wants to test the effectiveness of the support group he runs for undergraduates who have drinking problems. He recruits a group of students who have been referred to the counseling center. He randomizes them to two groups: a structured-session group and an unstructured-session group. The structured-session group attends 10 structured support-group sessions at 8:00 a.m. on Fridays that are facilitated by Dr. Harrison. The unstructured-session group attends 10 unstructured meetings at 3:00 p.m. on Wednesdays that are facilitated by members of the group. Several of the participants in the structured-session group stop attending after just a couple of sessions. All the members of the unstructured-session group attend their meeting regularly. At the end of the 10 weeks, Dr. Harrison measures drinking behavior of the people who are still attending the groups. He finds the drinking behavior of people who attended all 10 structured-group sessions is less than the drinking behavior of people who attended all 10 unstructured-group sessions.

Which kind of threat to internal validity should Dr. Harrison be concerned about?

selection-attrition threat

selection-attrition threat

only one of the experimental groups experiences attrition

selection-history threat

A threat to internal validity in which a historical or seasonal event systematically affects only the subjects in the treatment group or only those in the comparison group, not both.

Dr. Robinson designs an intervention meant to reduce college students' risky sexual decisions. She hypothesizes that shaming college students about their risky sexual decisions will improve their decision-making. She recruits participants and randomly assigns them to two conditions: the intervention group and the control group. The sexual behavior of all participants is measured in a pretest interview with Dr. Robinson. After the pretest interview, participants in the intervention group are scheduled for an individual shaming session with Dr. Robinson. The control group does not receive the shaming session. One week after the intervention, both groups are interviewed by Dr. Robinson about their sexual behavior during the past week. She finds that the intervention group reported less-risky sexual decisions than the control group in the posttest interview. In which way could Dr. Robinson improve the internal validity of her study?

use a masked design

Emma is planning an experiment to examine whether reading to children increases their vocabulary size. She plans to measure the vocabulary size of a group of 18-month-old children, read to them three times a week for 3 months, then measure their vocabulary size again. Emma could change the design of the study to remove a major threat to internal validity by doing which of the following?

add a comparison group

(allows to show intervention had an effect beyond maturation)

Emma is planning an experiment to examine whether reading to children increases their vocabulary size. She plans to measure the vocabulary size of a group of 18-month-old children, read to them three times a week for 3 months, then measure their vocabulary size again. Which threat to internal validity should she be most concerned about?

maturation

Frances conducted a study on the concreteness on memory in her dorm. She created a list of 12 items that are very concrete (e.g., pencil and table) and a list of 12 items that are very abstract (e.g., justice and freedom). Each item was viewed for 1 second, then participants recalled them in order. Ten participants were randomly assigned to each list of items. The study showed null effects. Which is a possible explanation for this null effect?

external distractions that lead to unsystematic variability

situation noise

unrelated events or distractions in the external environment that create unsystematic variability within groups in an experiment

Frances investigated the effect of concreteness on memory. She created a list of 12 items that are very concrete (e.g., pencil and table) and a list of 12 items that are very abstract (e.g., justice and freedom). Each item was viewed for 1 second, then participants recalled them in order. Ten participants were randomly assigned to each list of items. The study showed null effects, and almost all the participants remembered all the words on both lists. Which is a likely solution?

change the design to eliminate ceiling effect

ceiling effect

all the scores are squeezed together at the high end

Frances investigated the effect of concreteness on memory. She created a list of 12 items that are very concrete (e.g., pencil and table) and a list of 12 items that are very abstract (e.g., justice and freedom). Each item was viewed for 1 second, then participants recalled them in order. Ten participants were randomly assigned to each list of items. The study showed null effects and large variability within the groups. Which is a likely solution?

add more participants

If everything else is equal, which of the following methods can help increase power in a study?

increase sample size

In an experiment on improving children's handwriting, two different techniques of improving handwriting and a control condition are used. Using a pretest/posttest design, both groups who received the treatment showed more improvement than the control group. However, the two groups didn't show any difference from each other. The researcher believes there is a difference but that the 5-point assessment scale of handwriting cannot detect it. Which measurement problem is the researcher concerned with?

insensitive measures

insensitive measures

Your instrument can't detect differences as small as the ones that exist

weak manipulations

Changes in the independent variable that are not significant enough to affect the dependent variable

Individual differences can contribute to too much within-group variability. Which of the following is a possible solution to individual differences?

Use a within-groups design rather than an independent-groups design.

Jared is conducting an experiment with extrasensory perception (ESP) training. He begins with a pretest of his 40 participants and then divides them into two groups based on their scores. The participants with the 10 lowest scores are given extensive training on how to detect the signals. The participants with the 30 highest scores are given no training. Both groups are retested and the average score of the participants with the training improved, whereas the average score of the participants without the training fell. Which threat to internal validity should Jared consider?

regression

regression threat

A threat to internal validity related to regression to the mean, a phenomenon in which any extreme finding is likely to be closer to its own typical, or mean, level the next time it is measured (with or without the experimental treatment or intervention).

attrition threat

In a repeated-measures design or quasi-experiment, a threat to internal validity that occurs when a systematic type of participant drops out of a study before it ends.

Lucia is interested in studying discrimination in hiring. She designs an experiment in which the participant takes the role of an employer looking at job candidates for a specific position. Each participant is given two very similar résumés (one of a candidate with a female name and one of a candidate with a male name) and is then asked to rate the suitability of each candidate for a job. Lucia finds no difference in participants' ratings of male and female candidates. Which threat to internal validity should she be concerned about?

demand characterstics

On the first exam in an Introductory Psychology class, the grades are lower than Professor Mutola expected. She suspects that multitasking is to blame. She bans computers and cell phones from her class between the first and the second exam. When she compares the scores on the two exams, she finds a significant improvement on the second exam. Which of the following is the name for this type of design?

one group, pre/posttest

On the first exam in an Introductory Psychology class, the grades are lower than Professor Mutola expected. She suspects that multitasking is to blame. She bans computers and cell phones from her class between the first and the second exam. When she compares the scores on the two exams, she finds a significant improvement on the second exam. Professor Mitchell points out that in her classes, students always do better on the second exam because they are more used to her tests. Which threat to validity is Professor Mitchell suggesting?

maturation

On the first exam in an Introductory Psychology class, the grades are lower than Professor Mutola expected. She suspects that multitasking is to blame. She bans computers and cell phones from her class between the first and the second exam. When she compares the scores on the two exams, she finds a significant improvement on the second exam. When Professor Mutola rechecks her data, she finds that the five students with the lowest scores on the first exam have dropped the class. Which threat to internal validity is this?

attrition

On the first exam in an Introductory Psychology class, the grades are lower than Professor Mutola expected. She suspects that multitasking is to blame. She bans computers and cell phones from her class between the first and the second exam. When she compares the scores on the two exams, she finds a significant improvement on the second exam. Professor Mutola looks back over the second exam and begins to wonder if it was just an easier exam. Which threat to internal validity is she considering?

instrumentation

Some internal validity threats can be addressed simply by including a comparison group, whereas other internal validity threats can occur even in studies with a comparison group. Which of the following threats to internal validity would be improved with the inclusion of a comparison group?

maturation threat

The students in Professor Zhao's 50-student Introductory Psychology class were randomly assigned to one of two review sessions, each being taught with a different technique. The next day, all 50 students got all 10 test questions correct. Which problem does Professor Zhao have in determining the better teaching technique for review sessions?

ceiling effect

Which of the following contributes to within-groups variability?

measurement error

Which of the following is a problem that may contribute to a null effect in a study?

weak manipulations

Which threat to internal validity occurs when there is a greater systematic loss of participants in one condition than the other condition?

attrition

Which two types of validity in an experiment can observer bias threaten?

internal validity and construct validity

A researcher wants to run a 2 × 3 mixed factorial design. The first factor is within-subjects. The second factor is between-subjects. If the researcher wants 20 observations per cell, which of the following is the correct number of participants he will need in total?

60

Calculating which of the following allows us to examine the main effect of one variable?

marginal means

marginal means

In a factorial design, the arithmetic means for each level of an independent variable, averaging over the levels of another independent variable.

interaction effect

a result from a factorial design, in which the difference in the levels of one independent variable changes, depending on the level of the other independent variable; a difference in differences

factorial design

a study in which there are two or more independent variables, or factors

moderating variable

variable that changes the nature of the relationship between two other variables

3 independent variables, 24 cells

In a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design, what are all the possible effects to test?

three main effects, three two-way interactions, and a three-way interaction

In a factorial-design study, which effect is usually considered the most important?

the interaction

Interactions allow researchers to examine which of the following variables?

moderating

moderating variable

variable that changes the nature of the relationship between two other variables

mediating variable

a variable that helps explain the relationship between two other variables

Confounding (Third) Variable

a factor other than the independent variable that might produce an effect in an experiment

main effect

In a factorial design, the overall effect of one independent variable on the dependent variable, averaging over the levels of the other independent variable.

Jane is conducting a study on the effects of meditation on stress with highly anxious and nonanxious participants. She finds that overall, highly anxious participants reported greater levels of stress and that, overall, participants in the meditation group reported lower levels of stress than the group that did not practice meditation. She also found that the impact of meditation on lowering stress was particularly strong for participants who were highly anxious. Which of the following is a correct description of the results?

two main effects and an interaction