Chapter 1: Research and Research Methods Flashcards
Experience, Intuition, and Authority all have limitations as means of gathering evidence for behaviour. The preferred alternative is ___________, which uses evidence from senses as the basis for conclusions.
Empiricism.
The 5 steps of the scientific method are
Identify question, Form hypothesis, test hypothesis, Analyze data, Build body of knowledge.
What is a variable?
A characteristic that can vary.
What is an operational definition
Definition of a variable/concept in terms of specific procedures used to produce/measure it.
A factor that may affect results of a self-report is ________ bias
Social desirability.
Observational studies need reliable ___________ for consistent coding of observations and reliable results
operational definitions.
What are demand characteristics
Aspects of an observational setting that make subjects behave as they think they should (social desirability bias)
Three kinds of psychological tests are
Personality tests, intelligence tests, neuropsychological tests
___________ Research seeks to explain how an individual behaves, especially in natural environments
Descriptive.
Advantages of naturalistic observation include
Rich description of behaviours, avoids demand characteristics.
Disadvantages of naturalistic observation include
Cannot inform person that they’re being observed, long period of observation to get single measure of desired behaviour.
Three kinds of descriptive research are
Case study, naturalistic observation, surveys.
________ is the set of all individuals about whom we seek to form a conclusion, __________ is the subset of individuals drawn from set
Population, sample.
A _________ accurately reflects the important characteristics of the population
representative sample
With _____________ every member of population has an equal chance of being selected for sample
simple random sampling
Correlational research (can/can’t) determine causation
can’t
The correlational coefficient ranges from ___ to ___
-1 to 1
In a positive correlation, the decrease of one variable is associated with the (increase/decrease) of the other variable.
decrease
If no correlation is observed, the corresponding correlation coefficient would be
0
Two disadvantages of correlational research are
It cannot infer causation, relationships may be due to a third variable.
The __________ variable is manipulated by the experimenter in experimental research
independent
The ___________ variable is the measured variable of study in experimental research
dependent
What is the difference between a between subjects/groups and within subjects/groups design?
Between subjects design exposes each group to different treatments of independent variable, Within subjects design exposes each group to all treatments of independent variable.
Participants in research must provide ___________ prior to the study, and have ____________ of their results for it to be deemed ethical.
informed consent, privacy/confidentiality
