Lecture 5 Flashcards
What are the basic things you need to consider in an experiment?
-experimental vs control condition
-operational definition
-Independent vs. dependent variables
-single vs double blind experiment
- experimenter bias
what does longitudinal research use? Why is this problematic?
Because it uses correlations, it is still susceptible to confounds
how do we get around confounds?
we can manipulate the variable we’re interested in.
What are confounds?
3rd variables
what are 2 confounding variables for Violence and Video games?
Child’s temperament and lack of parental supervision
How many variables can influence a relationship?
potentially an infinite number of 3rd variables that could influence a relationship
In an experiment testing video games and violence, If the measure of violent behaviour is similar between 50 participants who play a violent video game and 50 participants play a non-violent video game what kind of effect is this?
A null effect
How do we use variables in experimentation?
we manipulate one variable and observe its effects on another variable.
What is the independent variable?
The variable you manipulate to see its effects on the outcome variable
What is the dependent variable?
The outcome variable- the variable that is measured or is of interest in the study (ex: violent behaviour)
What is the experimental group?
The group that recieves the intervention
What is the control group?
The group that does not receive the intervention
what process should you use to divide your sample into conditions?
Randomization
Why do we randomly assign participants to conditions?
That way every participant has an equal opportunity to be assigned to the control or experimental condition
In an experiment, what do you need to do after randomization and why?
You need to go through and make sure the randomization worked because it is still statistically possible to get similar people in each group.
What are the three steps to doing randomization effectively?
Start with a survey, do random assignment, check to see it worked