Chapter 5 Flashcards
Fixed Alternative Questions
Questions where the respondent selects his or her answer from a set of specified responses.
Open-Ended Questions
Allows the respondent to provide his or her answer in his or her own words.
Often summarized with content analysis.
Rating Scales
Fixed alternative questions where the respondent indicates magnitude on a scale.
Likert Scales
Statements in which the respondent is asked to indicate the degree he or she agrees or disagrees with the statement.
Semantic Differential
The respondent rates words on a series of bipolar scales.
Designed to measure the psychological distance between the connotative meanings of words.
Socially Desirable Responding
giving answers that respondents think are appropriate or that they think the researchers might want to hear
Response Set
giving only moderate answers or always agreeing or disagreeing.
Ways Psychologists measure observed behavior
Accuracy – responses are either right or wrong.
Frequency – how often a behavior occurs in a specified period of time.
Latency – speed of onset.
Duration – how long the behavior lasts.
Amplitude – size of response.
Choice selection – frequency of choice between alternatives.
Quantitative Variables
Differ in terms of amount; different values contain more or less of the variable.
Qualitative Variables
Different values of these variables are different in quality.
Nominal
Differ in name (e.g., gender, eye color).
Limited statistical manipulations
Ordinal
Vary in order of quantity (e.g., first, second, and third place in a race).
Non-parametric statistical analyses.
Interval
The intervals between the values of the variables are equal (e.g., IQ scores).
Can use parametric statistical analyses.
Ratio
Like interval variables but with a true zero point (e.g., temperature in Kelvin).
Can use the greatest variety of statistical analyses.
Chronbach’s Alpha
in the intercorrelation among all the items on the scale.
Test-Retest Reliability
determined by correlating the scores received by a group of participants who were tested at two different times.
Split-Half Reliability
determined by correlating half the items on a set of homogeneous questions with the other half.
Inter-Rater Reliability
measures the level of agreement between judges scoring behavior.
Face-Validity
Whether the measure seems to be a reasonable measure of the variable.
Construct Validity
Whether the measure is measuring the underlying construct.
Determined by how well the measure of a variable fits into a theory.
Content Validity
The degree that a measure assesses all the dimensions of the construct.
Criterion and Predictive Validity
If a measure of behavior has criterion validity then it should correlate with another measure of the same kind of behavior, a criterion measure.
Test
refers to many procedures used to measure a variable.
Scale
refers to a measure of a specific psychological characteristic.
