Research Methods Flashcards
theory
a general model of interconnected ideas that explains what is observed and makes predictions about future events
hypotheses
a single, specific, testable prediction
Replication
a repetition of a research study to confirm the results.
Descriptive research
involves observing behavior to describe that behavior objectively and systematically
reactivity
the phenomenon that occurs when knowledge that one is being observed alters the behavior being observed
experimenter expectancy effect
actual change in behavior of the people or nonhuman animals being observed that is due to the expectations of the observer
Participant observation
a type of descriptive study in which the researcher is involved in the situation
naturalistic observation
a type of descriptive study in which the researcher is a passive observer, separated from the situation
Directionality problem
researchers find a relationship between two variables but cannot determine which variable may have caused changes in the other variable (sleep and stress for example)
Third variable problem
the researcher cannot be confident that another, unmeasured variable is not that actual cause of differences in the variables of interest
operational definition
a definition that qualifies or quantifies a variable so the variable can be understood objectively.
Descriptive statistics
summarize how two variables relate to each other
inferential statistics
is the difference due to chance or does is reflect true differences.
