Big and Research Questions

Question 1

Belief Bias

Answer 1

The strength of an argument altered by how believable the conclusion is, e.g.:
All professors are mortal
All sadists are mortal
Therefore, all professors are sadists

Question 2

Confirmation Bias

Answer 2

Tendency to search for/remember information that confirms your preconceptions

Question 3

Experimental Bias

Answer 3

Tendency for experimenters to believe, certify, and publish data that agree with their expectations for the outcome of an experiment, and to disbelieve, discard, or downgrade the corresponding weightings for data that appear to conflict

Question 4

Conjunction Fallacy

Answer 4

When it is assumed that specific conditions are more probable than a single general one.

Question 5

Availability Heuristic

Answer 5

Tendency to overestimate the probability of events that are more available in memory (e.g., recent, unusual, emotionally charged)
◦ Accidents
◦ Lottery winning

Question 6

Gambler’s fallacy

Answer 6

The mistaken belief that, if something happens more frequently than normal during some period, it will happen less frequently in the future, or that, if something happens less frequently than normal during some period it will happen more

Question 7

Introspection Illusion

Answer 7

A cognitive bias in which people wrongly think they have direct insight into the origins of their mental states, while treating others’ introspections as unreliable.

Question 8

Data driven research

Answer 8

Reasoning from the data to the general theory

Question 9

Theory driven research

Answer 9

Reasoning from general theory to the data

Question 10

Good theory criteria:

Answer 10

• Comprehensiveness
• Precision and testability
• Parsimony
• Heuristic value

Question 11

Comprehensiveness

Answer 11

Broad enough to account for as much data as possible
•If there are data relevant to a theory that it cannot account for:
• Either adapt the theory to account for the new data
• Develop a new theory that incorporates the new data

•Example: Can the auditory theory account for perceptual phenomena, such as categorical perception, phonemic restoration?

Question 12

Precision and Testability

Answer 12

A good theory should have concepts that are clearly and explicitly defined:
• Contains rational, logically related statements
• Empirically testable hypotheses
•Some ESP believers argue that the presence of a disbeliever can prevent someone with ESP from being able to perform.
•We aim to disprove theories (not prove them)

Question 13

Omnipotent theory

Answer 13

So powerful, general, or flexible that they can account for everything
• Not testable/falsifiable

Question 14

Parismony

Answer 14

Occam’s razor: The explanation of any phenomena should make as few assumptions as possible.
àAll things being equal, the simplest explanation tends to be the best

Question 15

Heuristic Value

Answer 15

Makes (basic or applied) predictions, generates new knowledge, stimulates future research

Question 16

Empirical research

Answer 16

Gather new information through observation/measurements

Question 17

Non-empirical research

Answer 17

use existing information

Question 18

Quantitative

Answer 18

Numerical data or data to which statistics can be applied
Quantify attitudes, opinions, behaviors, etc.
Generalize results from a sample to a population
Methods include surveys, structured interviews/observations, systematic experiments

Question 19

Qualitative

Answer 19

Primarily exploratory: Aim to reveal underlying reasons,
opinions, motives, trends
Often used to generate hypotheses to be tested in
subsequent quantitative research
Methods include unstructured/semi-structured
techniques, verbal measures
Focusgroups,individualinterviews,observations,field-work
Sample size is typically small

Question 20

Validity

Answer 20

how accurately a test or measure represents the knowledge, skill, or
trait you set out to assess

Question 21

Reliability

Answer 21

the extent to which the measure yields consistent or repeatable results

Question 22

Concept of Validity vs Reliability

Answer 22

a measure can be

reliable even if it is not valid, but a measure cannot be valid if it is not reliable

Question 23

Face Validity

Answer 23

validity based on a person’s judgment of how well a test appears to
accomplish its purpose (customers)

Question 24

Content Validity

Answer 24

How valid is a test judged by experts in the field?

Question 25

Concurrent Validity

Answer 25

Compare results with an old test to see if the test measures are similar

Question 26

Predictive Validity

Answer 26

administer the new test to a group of
participants and determine how they perform on a criterion measure in the future (grad school performance, reading achievement)

Question 27

Construct validity

Answer 27

patterns or relationships among test

items, or relationships between test items and external standards of comparison

Question 28

Convergence (Validity)

Answer 28

When a person performs in a similar way on test items

Question 29

Divergence (validity)

Answer 29

A person could have very good cognitive abilities and relatively poorer motor skills, and, thus, scores from items that tap cognitive abilities could be quite different from scores on items that tap motor skills.

Question 30

Interobserver reliability

Answer 30

the procedure is one that yields
consistent results when two different examiners or observers use the procedure to test the same
persons

Question 31

Parallel-forms reliability

Answer 31

The researchers or test developers construct two different, but hopefully equivalent, forms of a measure

Question 32

split half reliability

Answer 32

Following test administration, you split the test items into two equivalent forms and then compare the participants’ scores for each form. One common way to divide a test into equivalent halves is to split it into odd-numbered and evennumbered
items.

Question 33

Operationalize

Answer 33

process of defining the variables in a study

Question 34

Null hypothesis

Answer 34

Strategy for maintaining researcher’s objectivity (REJECT, not disprove)

Question 35

Alternative

Answer 35

(directional or non directional) what the researchers expect to find.

Question 36

Evidence basked practice (EBP)

Answer 36

an approach in which clinicians use the
best available scientific evidence to guide their decisions about how to evaluate and treat persons with communication disorders

Question 37

PICO

Answer 37

Patient Intervention Comparison Outcome

often used with EBP

Question 38

Quasi-experimental research

Answer 38

Experimental research that lacks random assignment to groups is sometimes referred to as…

Question 39

Examples of nonexperimental research

Answer 39

case studies, surveys, studies of relationships or correlations between measures, as well as comparison or
case-control studies

Question 40

True experiment (2)

Answer 40

experimental manipulation and random assignment