Research exam 2 Flashcards
Independent Variable
- manipulated variable
- should be practical and ethical
Situational
- type of independent variable in which subjects encounter different environmental circumstances (e.g., large vs. small rooms in a crowding study)
Task
- type of independent variable in which participants are given different types of tasks to perform (e.g., mazes that differ in level of difficulty)
Instructional
type of independent variable in which participants are given different sets of instruction about to perform (e.g., given a list of stimuli, groups might be told to process them in different ways)
Experimental group
in a study with an identified control group, the experimental groups is given the treated to be tested
Control group
a group not given a treatment being evaluated in a study
- provides a means of comparison
Extraneous variable
- an uncontrolled factor not of interest to the researcher but that could affect results
- becomes a confound when it interferes with the results/performance
Dependent Variable
- behavior measured as the outcome of the experiment
- practical (measurable)
- ethical
- quantifiable (represented as a number)
- reliable (consistency, when more than one person agrees that the DV is the same)
- sensitive (should be able to detect changed from IV)
Ceiling Effect
- the level at which an independent variable no longer has an effect on a dependent variable
- the level above which variance in an independent variable is no longer measured or estimated.
Floor Effect
- statistical phenomenon in which most data points fall in the very low range of possible values (“bottom out” on the “floor” of the measure).
- often seen in assessment when a test is too challenging for a given target population.
Types of DV’s
- choice selection
- amplitude
- frequency
- speed
- latency
Amplitude (DV))
- strength of feelings (i.e., scale of 1-10)
- strongly agree/disagree, moderately agree/disagree, etc.
Frequency (DV)
how often something happens
Latency (DV)
- i.e., inverse of speed
- longer time = slower you are
Subject/person variables
- a type of independent variable that is selected rather than manipulated by the experimenter
- an existing attribute of the individuals chosen for the study (e.g., gender)
statistical conclusion validity
- the degree to which conclusions about the relationship among variables based on the data are correct or “reasonable”
Types of external validity
- population validity
- ecological validity
- temporal (i.e., other times) validity
Population Validity
- external validity
- describes how well the sample used can be extrapolated to a population as a whole
Ecological Validity
- external validity
- refers to the extent of a research study are able to generalized to real-life settings
Temporal Validity
- external validity
- whether findings from a study hold true over time
Internal Validity
degree to which an experiment is free to confounds
Threats to internal validity
- history
- maturation
- regression
- testing
- instrumentation
- subject selection
- attrition
History
- threats to internal validity
- something uncontrolled occurs DURING the course of the study that might have an impact on the behavior of the participants (i.e., fire alarm goes off during data collection)
Maturation
- threat to internal validity
- participants change in some noticeable way over the course of the study for reasons other than the research manipulation