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68 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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What are the two main kinds of single case studies?
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1. Case study method – intensive description and analysis of a single individual; data is obtained from several sources, including naturalistic observation, interviews, psychological tests, and archival records. Describes application and results of a particular treatment.
2. Single-case experimental designs – focuses on the behavior of one individual; researcher contrasts treatment conditions for one individual whose behavior is being continuously monitored (independent variable of interest (usually treatment) is manipulated systematically for one individual). |
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What is a case study (types) and why might it be useful?
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1. Snapshot case – done within a single time period; useful for describing status of variables.
2. Longitudinal case – done over time, as key variables change “naturally”; useful for describing the natural changes in variables over time. 3. Intervention case – done over time, with a planned or unplanned change; useful to illustrate the possible effectiveness of a treatment. |
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What is a famous example of a case study? What pitfall does it illustrate?
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The case study of John Money was famous (“boy raised a girl”); illustrated pitfall that the case led to massive over-interpretation because it was based on only one case-long-term follow-up, which showed fallacy of original conclusions.
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What are the advantages and disadvantages of the case study method?
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o Advantages
Rich source of ideas for developing hypothesis Opportunity for clinical innovation Method for studying rare events Possible challenge to theoretical assumptions Tentative support for a psychological theory o Disadvantages Difficulty drawing cause-and-effect conclusions (limited internal validity) Possible biases when interpreting outcomes due to observer bias and biases in data collection Problem of generalizing findings for a single individual (limited external validity) |
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What are the three main kinds of single case (N=1) experimental designs – AB, ABAB, and multiple baseline – distinguish them from each other.
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o AB – measures DV and establishes stable baseline; introduces treatment (IV) to measure the DV; compares baseline and treatment stage by graphing and observing or using statistics. STRENGHTEN BY USING ABAB OR MBL.
o ABAB – used to demonstrate that behavior changes systematically when they alternate “no treatment” and “treatment” conditions (also called reversal design). A = initial baseline stage B = treatment stage A = return to baseline B = another treatment stage o MLB – makes use of baseline (A) and treatment (B) stages, but not by withdrawing treatment (ABAB); instead, researchers establish several baselines (ex. change a child’s aggressive behavior at home, in the classroom, and at day-care). 1. Record aggressive behavior without treatment in each situation 2. Treatment is introduced in one situation, behavior is monitored 3. Treatment is introduced in second situation, behavior is monitored 4. Procedure is continued until treatment is applied to each situation 5. Do results replicate? Is change occurring? Can also consider behavior in one situation for different individuals (across subjects) or treat different behaviors of one individual in one situation (across behaviors). |
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What is meant by “baseline” in these designs?
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“Baseline” is the recorded levels of the dependent variable before treatment – this is the behavior you want to change for the better (ex. # cals/day, # cigarettes/day, etc.).
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Why do we want behavior to return to baseline in an ABAB design? Why might it not do so?
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This allows the researcher to gain considerable evidence that the treatment caused the behavior change; it may not do so because 1. The behavior may not be expected logically to change once treated (teaching individuals new skills) 2. A variable other than the treatment caused behavior to change in the first shift from baseline to treatment stages 3. Or other variables took over to control the new behavior (positive reinforcement with weight loss, etc.).
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Why do we hope that the treatment does not generalize to other settings before we actually treat it in that setting?
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Unless behavior improves directly following an experimental intervention, it is hard to conclude that the treatment was effective (either the experiment was very effective or a factor other than the treatment caused the behavior to change).
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Why is the study of “clutter woman” a multiple baseline study?
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This study is a MBL study because the researchers used different rooms in her house as different situations. The bedroom was the “baseline”, or control, and began treatment to observe that as the other rooms in the house became uncluttered, the bedroom became slightly more cluttered.
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What distinguishes a quasi-experimental design from a true experiment?
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A quasi-experimental design (approximates conditions of highly controlled laboratory experiments) lacks the degree of control possible in true experiments.
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What are the elements of a quasi-experiment?
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o 1. An intervention is implemented.
o 2. The experimenter includes a comparison. |
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What are some threats to internal validity that may affect a quasi-experiment? What are history, selection, and participant mortality in the context of quasi-experiments?
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o Threats:
History – event is confounded with a treatment and causes a change in behavior (treatment for managing money when recession happened). Selection – differences between treatment and comparison group due to lack of random assignment become explanations besides treatment Participant mortality – differences at the end of the study may be due to differences in who remained in each group, rather than effects of treatment. |
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What is contamination?
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Contamination is a threat in which participants can talk to each other. The treatment group talks to the comparison group members, and the comparison groups practice treatment on themselves (diffusion of treatment).
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What are instrumentation effects and why do they happen?
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Instrumentation effects are the changes in the instrument or way objects interact with an instrument (ex. observers may become bored or tired) so changes may not be due to treatment, but due to changes in the instruments used to measure performance.
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What are the categorizations of quasi-experiments? (O,X, dotted lines)
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o O = measures of the DV before (pretest) and/or after (posttest) treatment.
o X = treatment (applied by researcher, by another agent, or naturally occurring). o Dotted lines = indicates that the treatment and comparison groups were not formed by assigning participants randomly to conditions (multiple groups with no random assignments). |
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What is a non-equivalent control groups design without pretest – can you give an example?
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o A non-equivalent control groups design without pretest would be any design with a comparison group, but lacking random assignment to conditions.
o Example: We do a safe sex program in on residence hall or fraternity on campus, and then measure safe sex behaviors in that dorm or frat plus another one down the street (which would be the control). |
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How do you draw it with the X, O, and dotted lines?
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o X O
o O |
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What is the non-equivalent control group design with pretest – show it.
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o Non-equivalent control groups design with pretest can rule out threats to internal validity due to history, maturation, testing, and regression, but may be left with experimenter expectancies or self-fulfilling prophecies.
o O1 X O2 o O1 O2 |
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What is the interrupted time series design? Give an example. What does it look like in a diagram? What are the most obvious threats to internal validity?
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o The interrupted time series design is any design with multiple measures of DV taken over time before or after intervention, often uses archival measures, due to number of data points needed over time.
o An example would be a crackdown on speeding in Connecticut. o O1 O2 O3 O4 O5 O6 O7 X O8 O9 O10 O11 O12 O13 O14 o Threats to internal validity include: History is a major threat (did anything else happen about that same time?) A series of pre and post measures control threats of maturation, testing, and regression. Selection does not apply, as there are no treatment and control groups. |
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What is “discontinuity” in the context of an interrupted time series design? What does it mean?
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“Discontinuities” can be described as abrupt changes in the time graph, provides evidence for treatment effectiveness.
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What does it (ITS) have in common with an ABAB design?
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An ITS design is similar to an ABAB design because both look for discontinuities during the intervention in order to determine the effectiveness of the treatment.
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What is the interrupted time series with non-equivalent control groups design? What does it look like?
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o It is a combination of the two major designs that helps to deal with the threat of history, in that an event that affects both groups cannot be responsible for treatment effects.
o O1 O2 O3 O4 O5 O6 O7 X O8 O9 O10 O11 O12 O13 O14 o O1 O2 O3 O4 O5 O6 O7 O8 O9 O10 O11 O12 O13 O14 |
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The study of alcohol warning labels – what was the design?
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This can be characterized as a (modified) time-series with nonequivalent control groups design.
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What is program evaluation and why do we use it?
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o Program evaluation is research that seeks to determine whether a change proposed by an institution, a government agency, or another unit of society is needed and likely to have an effect as planned or, when implemented, to actually have an effect.
o Its purpose is to assess the effectiveness of the programs and services of human service organizations; also used to evaluate any intervention, program, or service that cannot be evaluated simply by financial results. o PE: is interdisciplinary, uses qualitative and quantitative techniques, and can be “mission-oriented”. |
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Define the four questions in program evaluation.
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o 1. Needs: Is the program (as planned) meeting the needs of the people it serves?
Use a survey o 2. Process: How is a program being implemented (is it going as planned)? Use observation o 3. Outcome: Has a program been effective in meeting its stated goals? Use experiment or quasi-experiment o 4. Efficiency: Is a program cost-efficient relative to alternative programs? Use experiment or quasi-experiment |
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In what way can program evaluation add to psychological knowledge as a research study? What skills does the psychologist need to work with social service and government agencies on program evaluation?
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o Because program evaluation is practical as opposed to theoretical, it becomes the most extreme case of applied research.
o Psychologists need to convince administrators to use true experiments or quasi-experiments when instituting new social programs. |
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Who can be a consumer of psychological research?
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o Anyone working in a field based on social science
o Anyone working in an organization that uses psychological research o Anyone taking courses in psychology or other social sciences o Anyone who tries to be an informed citizen |
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What are the characteristics of pseudosciences versus true sciences? What are some examples of pseudoscience?
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o Characteristics:
Inductive/deductive/verification process disregarded Takes a nonscientific approach – often could be called the “armchair” approach to knowledge Rely on testimonials (participants, famous people) Rely on chance events Evidence based on selected studies and observations Negative results dismissed o Some examples: Astrology Therapy or medicine not based on scientific research (herbal cures) Few famous diets Few theories not subject to research (Freud’s) |
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What are some obstacles to scientific thinking?
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o Why do people resist scientific evidence and persist in believing pseudoscience?
o Belief in supernatural forces o Cognitive biases Jumping to beliefs in causality Conformity biases – seeing what you already believed Tendency to believe the stereotypic Tendency to believe people who have advanced degrees – credentials Not enough on methods of research in science education Lack of critical thinking in general |
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What is “peer review”? What types of works are and are not subject to “peer review”?
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o Peer review is the process in which scientists look to other scientists to go over and test their research and conclusions.
o APA journals and most other well-regarded journals are subject to peer review; books and chapters are not peer reviewed. |
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Why do scientists disagree sometimes?
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o Conflicting findings and methods – it all depends on the questions asked
o Alternative interpretations of even good research o Scientific process, which is adversarial, cyclical, and cumulative |
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What are some cautions in relying on the media as knowledgeable of psychology research?
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o Headlines and news reports over-simplify
o Dramatic, surprising findings over-emphasized |
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What are better ways of disseminating psychology knowledge to the public?
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Anything from the APA – journals, media, website
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From the lecture on correlation design research, list 3 of the 4 ways that you can increase the reliability of a measure.
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1. Increasing the number of items used to assess a construct.
2. Administering the measure to a diverse sample rather than to a restricted sample of individuals. 3. Making sure the testing situation is free of distractions and the measure has clear instructions. |
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List the two types of validity that make up construct validity.
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1. Convergent
2. Discriminant |
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T/F: In null hypothesis testing, it is assumed that the IV has an effect on the dependent variable.
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False
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T/F: One way to increase the external validity is to increase your sample size.
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True
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T/F: John is interested in studying the effects of age on political view. He selects a sample by ensuring that each person in the population has an equal chance of being selected to participate in his research. He is using stratified random sampling.
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False
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T/F: One of the first things you do after collecting your data is search for outliers. It is never ethical to remove outliers from your research data, as that would mislead the public regarding what the actual data of your experiment suggests.
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False
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T/F: Counterbalancing is a way to lessen the effects of practice effects in your research.
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True
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T/F: In a complex research design, it is only possible to see an interaction if you have at least one main effect.
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False
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If you have 4 or fewer conditions and you are attempting to counterbalance, it is more appropriate to use "all possible orders" versus "block randomization".
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True
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Difference between positive and negative correlation.
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P.C. describes a relationship in which as one variable increases, the other variable also increases. N.C. is the opposite. In N.C., as one variable increases, the other variable decreases. This can be shown effectively on a scatterplot.
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Define confound, as it relates to research, and explain two examples that a researcher would implement to "control for confounds".
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A confound is something that may vary along with the IV and could influence the DV. To control for confounds:
1. hold conditions constant - treatment group has same experience as control group. 2. use balancing - participants in each condition are similar (random selection and random assignment). |
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Provide 3 elements of a "true experiment".
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For an experiment to be considered a "true experiment" the researcher must:
1. manipulate at least one of the independent variables 2. have at least one condition 3. control all other variables |
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List the four threats to internal validity and define two of them.
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1. intact groups
2. extraneous variables 3. expectancy - subjects may try to perform how they feel they are expected to. 4. subject loss - over time, participants may drop out of the experiment due to various reasons (loss of interest, change in location, etc). |
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Explain the difference between random groups design and matched group design.
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In a RGD, participants are selected in a random fashion to increase representativeness. However, in a MGD, participants are selected randomly, but must engage in a pretest so the experimenters can place them where they feel would create a better scope of the population in the sample.
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Define the bubble effect.
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The bubble effect states that all experiments suffer from lack of perfection - often high internal validity is obtained at the cost of some external validity, or visa versa.
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List and define three types of Survey Research Design.
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1. cross-sectional - experimenters test one group only once to come up with a conclusion based on the information (to learn about individuals).
2. successive independent - experimenters do a series of cross-sectional experiments over time, using a different group of participants for each experiment (to learn about how the population changes over time). 3. longitudinal - experimenters test one group over a span of time, conducting the same experiment each time (to learn about how the individuals change over a period of time). |
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Provide the ethical considerations one has where the control group is concerned, when conducting a treatment study (clinical trial). How is it possible to get around this ethical dilemma?
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In a clinical trial there are ethical concerns because the control group won't be receiving any treatment whereas the experimental group will be. To get around this the researcher must establish it as a "wait control" where in the end the control group will receive the same treatment.
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List and define two ways of measuring reliability.
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1. test-retest measure - initially testing a group in an experiment, then testing it again to see if the results are consistent and reliable.
2. internal consistency measure - makes sure all the measures of an experiment are similar and consistent to each other in order to provide an accurate response. |
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Define induction and deduction as they were defined in class.
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Induction is the transition of knowledge from specific from general, or data to theory. Deduction is the transition of knowledge from general to specific, or theory to prediction.
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List the 8 steps of the Theory Testing Research Model.
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1. Develop a research question.
2. Generate a research hypothesis. 3. Form operational definitions. 4. Choose a research design. 5. Evaluate the ethics. 6. Collect data. 7. Analyze data and form conclusions. 8. Report research results. |
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If a researcher makes sure that the amount of risk in their study is the same as what their participants would be exposed to in real life, they are said to have created...
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minimal risk.
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What is the question asked in the Risk/Benefit Ratio?
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Do the benefits outweigh the risks in the research?
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List the two characteristics that need to be present for an indirect observational study.
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1. No intervention.
2. Researcher is not present when behavior occurs. |
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A researcher is interested in using archival data to conduct research. The two things that might create bias are...
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selective deposit and selective survival.
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T/F: Informed consent means that you provide participants with alternatives to participating in research.
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False
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T/F: An example of an archival record is a running record, which provides data for records that are continuously produced.
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True
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T/F: All things considered, among the mean, median, and mode, the mean provides the most valuable information.
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True
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T/F: Dr. Green is interested in understanding the universal process of handling grief. He should use an idiographic approach for his study.
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False
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T/F: There is never a time when research can be conducted without acquiring consent from a research participant.
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True
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What happened during Humphrey's Tearoom Trade research?
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Humphrey observed men having sexual relations in a public restroom. He would help the men by looking out for the. Later, he disguised himself as a social interviewer and interviewed all the men he observed.
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List and provide the definition for the three types of direct observation with intervention.
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1. participant observation - research in which the observer actually interacts directly with the participants as he/she observes.
2. structured observation - research in which the observer watches from afar, but sets up the situation to happen the way he/she wants. 3. field experiment - research in which the observer watches from afar, but manipulates two or more variables of the research to test the reaction. |
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List and define the four goals of psychological research.
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1. description - describe, define, and analyze research provided.
2. prediction - create a correlation, or relationship, between variables in the research that allows the researcher to hypothesize. 3. understand - relate the research to other findings, research in heavy detail, fully learn the subject, and find causation. 4. create changes - use new research discovered to help people and to create a better world. |
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Describe the major difference between correlational and experimental studies.
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The difference is that correlational studies are more focused on a relationship between two things (for example, "Is GPA directly affected by amount of sleep?"), while experimental studies focus more on one thing and how it reacts by manipulating its variables (for example, "Does perfume affect level of attraction in humans?"). Also, experiments = causation.
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List and define the three purpose of debriefing.
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1. Removes any harmful effects or misconceptions about participation.
2. To explain the participants the need for deception. 3. To educate participants about the research and leave them with positive feelings about their participation. |
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What are two basic steps that one should engage in if the find that the data that they have collected research does not support their theory?
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1. Check to make sure all data collected was accurate.
2. Check the quality of the measures used in the research (validity, accuracy, reliability, etc.). If nothing is wrong in either steps, you must make a change to your theory. |
