Q2: Research Methods

Question 1

Hindsight Bias

Answer 1

“i knew it all along” “hindsight is 20/20” ex looking at an answer to a question and thinking you actually knew

Question 2

Confirmation Bias

Answer 2

looking for info to confirm an already held belief /not actively looking for data to refute your hypothesis. (ex numbers doubling pattern example from class)

Question 3

Overconfidence

Answer 3

overestimating what you know.

Question 4

operational definitions

Answer 4

define concepts in terms of procedures used to measure or create them (ex when judging how many people smile in photos… what is considered a smile?)

Question 5

Naturalistic Obseravtion

Answer 5

Observing what would happen even if we weren’t there.
-No bias of the person recorded.
-Hard to tell things sometimes

Question 6

Case Study

Answer 6

Studying a situation in which it would be unethical for us to create our own version.
-Can’t make generalizations.

Question 7

Survey

Answer 7

Asking lots of people questions.
-Volunteer bias
-Representative sample

Question 8

Experiments

Answer 8

Involve the manipulation of variables to determine their effects on measured variables.
-Establish cause and effect.
-Careful control is needed when designing experiments to not compromise results
-IV + DV

Question 9

Cause and Effect

Answer 9

Established by experiments

Question 10

Independent Variable (IV)

Answer 10

controlled by the experimenter; the “cause” variable.

Question 11

Dependent Variable (DV)

Answer 11

the outcome measured by the experimenter; the “effect” variable.

Question 12

Experimental Group

Answer 12

exposed to IV (ex students given cookies before tests)

Question 13

Control Group

Answer 13

not exposed to IV (ex students without cookies before tests)

Question 14

Within Group Design

Answer 14

subjects serve as their own control (all are exposed to the IV)

Question 15

Between Group Design

Answer 15

subjects are split into experimental and control groups

Question 16

Confounding Variables (extraneous variables)

Answer 16

-Environment (keep consistent)
-Expectations (blind procedure)
-Individual difference (randomly assign subjects to groups so diffs have same avg. impact)
-Double Blinding (neither researcher or subject know what they’re getting, like placebo or medicine)

Question 17

Random Sampling

Answer 17

to select participants from population.
allows you to generalize results (ex people will do better after having cookies before a test)

Question 18

Random Assignment

Answer 18

to divide participants into groups.
controls individual differences/confounding variables.

Question 19

effect size

Answer 19

measure of how large an impact the IV has on the DV (is this just a coincidence or is it factual?)

Question 20

statistically significant

Answer 20

results are unlikely due to chance / results are likely due to the change in IV.
p ≤ 0.05
p = likelihood it is chance

Question 21

Correlational Research

Answer 21

involves the use of statistical methods to reveal and describe the relationship between two variables. (correlation coefficient)
-variables are not manipulated by researcher
-does not establish cause + effect (may suggest it though)

Question 22

Correlation Coefficient

Answer 22

the degree to which variables are statistically associated is expressed as a correlation coefficient. demonstrates how powerful a variable is as the other changes. (R value)

Question 23

R value

Answer 23

(correlation coefficient) varies from -1.00 to +1.00 (it is a calculation error if >1 or <-1) as the value gets closer to 1 or -1 the stronger the relationship between variables is. if the value is near zero there is little to no relationship.

Question 24

positive correlation

Answer 24

r > 0
as one variable increases so does the other

Question 25

negative/inverse correlation

Answer 25

r < 0
as one variable increases the other decreases