Exam #1 Flashcards
(1) Explain why the question of whether human’s knowledge and mental capabilities and processes are largely inborn or learned through experience—a question debated by the Ancient Greeks—is relevant to how we design modern education systems.
- Nativism: all knowledge is inborn
- Emperism: the idea that knowledge is learned through experience
This is relevant because it decides what the education system should focus on. - Nativism would make educators question how they can make knowledge emerge and when knowledge naturally emerges during our development.
- Empiricism would make educators question what experiences make aquire students more knowledge and how much knowledge can they aquire (learning limit)
Define the term “falsifiability,” and explain why falsifiability is a necessary criterion for a hypothesis to be scientific.
Falsifiability is the ability of a claim to be tested, and as a result, posibly refuted. A hypothesis is not falsifiable if you cannot observe or experiment on the variable.
* Falsifiable hypothesis can be tested through experiments
* Distinguishes from speculative claims or beliefs
* If disproven, it can be refined -> subject to revision
* A falsifiable hypothesis is based on evidence and is therefore objective
Describe the complete scientific research process, and explain how it differs from an intuition-based/everyday reasoning approach.
- Ask a question/identify a problem
- Make a prediction
- COnduct a study
- Construct conclusion
if the conclusion does not support the hypothesis then refine the hypothesis and retest
if the conclusion is true replicate
Intuition-based reasoning stops at step two and does not conduct a study.
Provide an example of each step of the scientific and intuition-based/everyday reasoning approaches, drawing your examples from our discussion of the creation, implementation, testing, and modification of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program.
Intuition Based:
1. Ask a question/identify a problem.
*How can we reduce drug and alcohol abusing young people?
2. Make a prediction.
Youth who hear from police officers about the dangers of drug use will be less likely to use drugs than those who don’t.
This is where the process for intuition based ends
Scientific process:
Step 1 and 2
3. Conduct a study
*randomly assign students to groups (group 1 in DARE & group 2 not in DARE)
*measure drug usage in students in both groups (when they’re older)
4. Construct conclusion
* students in dare were more likely to use drugs than students not in Dare.
Refined Hypothesis:
* Youth who hear from police officers about how to make good decisions and resist peer pressure will be less likely to use drugs.
*once they modified the hypothesis, they would redo the study w/ a different approach.
(6) Describe how you could test the following research question using an experimental study design: are people more likely to act aggressively towards others when the temperature is hotter? It must be clear from your response that the study you are describing contains all of the elements required for a study to be considered experimental.
Experimental study: participants are randomly assigned to either the control or experimental groups to test the dependent variable. The grouping system is the independent variable.
Randomly
1. Recruited participants to partake in a political debate.
2. Randomly assign each participant to the experimental (debated in a room in that was above room temp) group and the control (debated in a room temp room).
*gave each set of partners a po
(8) Describe how you could test the following research question using a correlational study design: are people more likely to act aggressively towards others when the temperature is hotter? It must be clear from your response that the study you are describing contains all of the elements required for a study to be considered correlational.
Correlational Study
measures the association of things
-sports, fouls, and weather
-r value measurement
-positive vs. negative and strength
(7) Describe how you could test the following research question using a quasi-experimental study design: are people more likely to act aggressively towards others when the temperature is hotter? It must be clear from your response that the study you are describing contains all of the elements required for a study to be considered quasi-experimental.
Quasiexperimental Studies are the same as experimental studies but the groups are naturally occurring and not assigned
(9) Define the term “external validity.” Imagine you were designing a study to test the following research question: are people more likely to act aggressively towards others when the temperature is hotter? Provide 2 examples of potential measures of aggression, one that has relatively high external validity, and one that has relatively low external validity.
External validity is how a study can be applied to the general world. Experiments have low external validity and correlation studies have high external validity. low validity ___experiment____. High validity
(10) Provide a definition of the “directionality problem,” and indicate what type of study is most affected by this problem.
Correlational studies only allow us to determine whether these is an association between two variables, but not whether one of the variables being measures is actually causing the noted changes in the other variable
-which variable is causing the other?
(11) Define the term “confounding variable,” indicate the most effective way to minimize the influence of confounding variables in a study, and explain why this approach is so effective at minimizing the influence of confounding variables in a study.
Variables that the researchers are not purposely studying that unexpectedly influences both the independent variable and the outcome variable, and therefore undermines our ability to draw causal conclusions from a study.
Random assignment minimizes the influence of confounding variables
-card activity
(12) Describe an example that illustrates why confounding variables undermine our ability to draw causal conclusions from a study.
-year of the dragon babies experiment
(13) Name and define the 2 major dimensions of measure quality.
reliability: the ability to yield the same results each time
*Is the measure consistent?
*precision (chem)
vs.
Validity
*is this accurate information/correct
(14) Early on during the Covid-19 pandemic, the only tests for Covid that existed were the PCR tests. While these tests scored very high on both dimensions of measure quality, they could only be conducted by healthcare workers, they required a lab to process the tests, and they took several hours or even days to get results back. In response to these limitations, a company develops the first rapid tests, which people can use in their own homes and get results in minutes. Describe how one can test whether this new Covid measure is high on each of the 2 major dimensions of measure quality. Please include a description of what results would suggest that the new measure is high on each dimension of measure quality, and what results would suggest that it is low on each dimension.
(15) Above is a picture of brain, with 6 parts marked with arrows: the 4 lobes of the cerebrum and 2 other major structures. Label each of the marked parts on the image provided, and indicate one primary function associated with each marked part.
(5) Define the terms “hypothesis” and “theory,” and provide an example of each that together demonstrate the difference between them.
theory-A comprehensive explanation of some aspect of nature that is supported by a vast body of evidence.
hypothesis-a testable prediction about the relationship between two or more variables. A hypothesis is a specific, testable statement or prediction about the relationship between two or more variables.
