Measuring and Manipulating Variables Flashcards
What are the 4 types of independent variables?
Physiological, experience, stimulus/environmental, participant.
What is a physiological IV?
Manipulation of a patients normal biological state (ex: drug testing, alcohol and reaction time)
What is an experience IV?
Manipulation in the amount or type of training or learning ex) massed versus distributed learning of a sport
What are stimulus/environmental IVs?
Manipulation of some aspect of the environment ex) how does performance change if we change some aspect of the work environment?
What are participant/subject IVs?
Aspects of the participants that are treated as if they are IVs. (not true IVs as they can’t be assigned to different groups)
What is the dependent variable?
Variable that is measured to see the effects of the independent variable.
How should you select your DV?
Relate back to your hypothesis, operationally definable, both valid and reliable.
What are the 4 types of DVs?
Correctness-how many were right?
Rate/frequency-how often did it occur in a specific amount of time
Degree or amount-how much of it was there?
Latency or duration-how fast did it happen, how long did it last?
What are nuisance variables?
Unwanted variables that increase the variability of scores among ALL groups. Makes it harder to see effects. Averages of groups don’t move, graphs get fatter.
What are confounding variables?
Unintended variables that create a systematic difference between the groups on the DV. Renders findings MEANINGLESS.
What is an example of a nuisance variable?
Question: Does increasing blood sugar increase reaction time?
Nuisance variables-Gender, metabolism, diet.
How do we get rid of nuisance/confounding variables?
Be a control freak!
1) Randomization-best chance at squaring the playing field since we don’t know all the extraneous variables at play.
2) Elimination- remove extraneous variables.
3) Constancy- If removal of extraneous variable is not possible, observer can try to make it remain constant-often refers to test conditions,
4) Balancing- Minimize the effects of the extraneous variable by distributing it to all groups equally.
What are order effects?
When a position in a series affects how participants respond… doesn’t depend on the EVENT rather the POSITION.
What is the carryover effect?
When the effect of one event influences responses to the next event… depends on EVENT not POSITION.
What is counterbalancing?
Helps with carryover and order-changes order/condition per group.
