Midterm #2 & #3 - Correlational Designs

Question 1

correlational study

Answer 1

• a research approach that focuses on how variables relate to one another

Question 2

purpose

Answer 2

• identify relationships between variables
• measure strength and direction of relationship

Question 3

directionality

Answer 3

• determines if relationship is positive or negative

Question 4

strength of association

Answer 4

• uses statistical method to measure strength of variable relationships
• indicated by correlation coefficient

Question 5

no causal inference

Answer 5

• can’t prove that changes in one variable causes changes in another

Question 6

advantages

Answer 6

• more natural setting and context
• carried out when ethics or manipulation not possible
• explore relationships or differences in more detail before trying to manipulate or identify causal variables

Question 7

limitations

Answer 7

• doesn’t restrict or manipulate confounding variables
• no manipulation, too many extraneous variables may exist to infer causality

Question 8

spurious correlation

Answer 8

• look related but aren’t
• actually a 3rd variable

Question 9

positive relationships

Answer 9

• increase in the values of one variable are associated with increases in the 2nd variable
• elevator

Question 10

negative relationships

Answer 10

• increases in the values of the one variable associated with decreases in the 2nd variable
• see-saw

Question 11

linear relationships

Answer 11

• more specific example of a general class of functions known as monotonic functions
• don’t change the direction of their slope

Question 12

curvilinear relationships

Answer 12

• increases in the value of one variable associated with both increases and decreases of the 2nd variable
• nonmonotonic

Question 13

correlation matrix

Answer 13

• summarizes the correlations between every possible pair of variables in a study

Question 14

content validity

Answer 14

• measure reflects all the relevant domains of the concept being assessed

Question 15

face validity

Answer 15

• measure is acceptable and understood by the target population

Question 16

construct validity

Answer 16

• measure corresponds to theoretical concepts

Question 17

concurrent (criterion) validity

Answer 17

• measure correlates well with similar measures or behaviours

Question 18

predictive validity

Answer 18

• measure predicts future events

Question 19

test-retest reliability

Answer 19

• compares reliability of test over two time points

Question 20

internal reliability

Answer 20

• consistency of items on a total/subscale

Question 21

split half reliability

Answer 21

• separate data into 2 halves and check the correlation between halves

Question 22

Cronbach’s Alpha

Answer 22

• correlation coefficient
• equivalent of all possible split halves

Question 23

exploratory factor analysis

Answer 23

• understand the structure of a set of variables
• develop/refine a questionnaire measure to assess an underlying construct
• reduce a dataset to a more manageable size for analysis