LEAD 9341 Midterm

Question 1

Definitions that indicate exactly what a researcher means by his or her concept. Indicates what the researcher’s concept is also called indicators.

Answer 1

Operational Definitions

Question 2

Process for continually defining concepts until the researcher arrives at a definition that is directly empirically observable. Process for asking “what do I mean?” until the answer is clearly observable and understood by a variety of people without further explanation

Answer 2

Operationalization

Question 3

A working definition a researcher uses for a concept.

Answer 3

Conceptual definitions

Question 4

Process of defining what a concept means

Answer 4

Conceptualization

Question 5

Infer general from particular (specific to general, sample to population)

Answer 5

Inductive reasoning

Question 6

Infer particular from general (general to specific, population to sample)

Must be either valid or invalid

Answer 6

Deductive reasoning

Question 7

the “cause” in a causal relationship. It is the variable that produces the change in the dependent variable.

i. Effects of which you are interested in studying
ii. The variable you are using to predict something
iii. The variable you are manipulating (in experimental research)

Answer 7

Independent Variable

Question 8

the effect in a causal relationship. The value of the depended variable “depends” or is influenced by the independent variable.

i. Dependent on changes/manipulations in the IV
ii. What are you measuring based on changes in the IV

Answer 8

Dependent Variable

Question 9

All other variables that may affect your results (e.g. individual differences, times of day, amount of sleep, etc). Other variables that may play a role in outcomes: age, gender, occupation, tenure

Answer 9

Extraneous Variable

Question 10

Effects independent variable that we are not studying

Answer 10

Confounding Variable

Question 11

Describe the sample distribution – mean, median, mode, and variability ( range, variance, standard deviation)

i. What does my distribution look like?
ii. Only refer to sample statistics. They do not say anything about the population
iii. Summarizing the scores you’ve actually measured

Answer 11

Descriptive Variable

Question 12

enables of to infer, with some degree of error, the characteristics of a population from a sample

i. What do they mean, with some degree of error
ii. Use sample statistics to infer something about the population parameters
iii. Using statistics to of the sample to infer or estimate the corresponding population parameters. i.e. you are generalizing to the population of interest
iv. Always has a p value to express the doubt

Answer 12

Inferential Statistics

Question 13

manipulate the independent variable and measure the dependent variable. Everything else, you control. What you cannot control you randomize

i. Random assignment
ii. Manipulation
iii. Time order (pre test, post test

Answer 13

Experimental research

Question 14

careful measurement of existing groups (often through surveys, observations etc.) Any time you measure existing groups (male vs female; older generation vs younger generation, etc., it is non-experimental because you have not manipulated anything, you are just measuring).

Answer 14

Non-experimental research

Question 15

a variable whose answer choices are exhaustive as well as mutually exclusive
i. Categorical variables

Answer 15

Nominal measure

Question 16

a variable whose answer choices are ranked, exhaustive, and mutually exclusive

Answer 16

Ordinal measure

Question 17

A variable whose answer choices are exhaustive, mutually exclusive, and have quantifiable distances between categories, but does not have a true zero point (any zero point is arbitrarily assigned.)

Answer 17

Interval measure

Question 18

a variable whose answer choices are exhaustive, mutually exclusive, have quantifiable distances between categories, and have a true zero point
i. Continuous variables

Answer 18

Ratio

Question 19

most frequently occurring score in a distribution

Answer 19

Mode

Question 20

the number or score that divides the distribution into equal halves

i. The 50th percentile
ii. Must first rank order the scores

Answer 20

Median

Question 21

the arithmetic average of the scores

Answer 21

Mean