Research Methods Lecture

Question 1

What is a scientific theory?

Answer 1

an explanation for a phenomenon that can be falsified and that involves entities that cannot be directly observed

Question 2

What does it mean for a scientific theory to be falsifiable?

Answer 2

there must be some hypothetical facts that would prove the theory false

Question 3

What is a hypothesis?

Answer 3

a prediction about observable events

Question 4

What is a case study?

Answer 4

a description of the behavior or abilities of a single individual

Question 5

Which school of Psychology used case studies as their primary research technique?

Answer 5

psychoanalysts

Question 6

What research technique in Psychology is most subject to the problem of confirmation bias?

Answer 6

Case studies

Question 7

What is naturalistic observation?

Answer 7

a research technique in which the researcher observes and describes behavior

Question 8

What research technique did Jane Goodall use to study the chimpanzees?

Answer 8

Naturalistic observations

Question 9

What are naturalistic observations good for?

Answer 9

answering simple questions

Question 10

What is the correlational approach?

Answer 10

attempts to determine the relationship between variables without manipulating the variables

Question 11

What are the two circumstances when a Psychologist would use the correlational approach?

Answer 11

When manipulating the variables would be:

a. Impossible or very difficult
b. unethical

Question 12

What is causation?

Answer 12

a causal relationship exists if a change in one variable results in a change in the other

Question 13

Can the correlational approach be used to determine if two variables have a causal relationship?

Answer 13

No

Question 14

If two variables have a perfect positive relationship, what would be the value of the correlation co-efficient for those variables?

Answer 14

+1

Question 15

What does it mean if the correlation co-efficient between two variables is near 0?

Answer 15

the relationship is very weak

Question 16

What two characteristics must an experiment possess?

Answer 16

manipulation in the independent variable and random assignment

Question 17

What is an independent variable?

Answer 17

the variable the researcher manipulates in an experiment

Question 18

What is a dependent variable?

Answer 18

the variable the researcher measures to determine the effects of the independent variable

Question 19

What is random assignment?

Answer 19

occurs when every person in the experiment has an equally likely chance of being assigned to each level of the independent variable

Question 20

In contrast to all other research techniques, what does an experiment allow a researcher to do?

Answer 20

infer a causal relationship between the independent and dependent variables

Question 21

What is an operational definition?

Answer 21

a concept is defined in terms of the variables used to measure it