Research Methods

Front 1

Basic Research

Back 1

esplores questions that are of interest to psychologists but are not intended to have immediate, real-world applications

Front 2

Applied Research

Back 2

has clear, practical applications

Front 3

Sampling

Back 3

the process by which participants are selected

Front 4

Target Population

Back 4

whole group you are studying

Front 5

Represntative Sample

Back 5

closely resembles target population

Front 6

random selection

Back 6

everyone has an equal chance of being chosen

Front 7

stratified sampling

Back 7

want sample to equal target pop based on some criteria

Front 8

Independent Variable

Back 8

factor experiment manipulates

Front 9

dependent variable

Back 9

factor that is affected because of independent variable

Front 10

operational definitions

Back 10

explanation of exactly how a variable will be measured

Front 11

experimental group

Back 11

has access to independent var.

Front 12

control group

Back 12

no access to ind. var.

Front 13

hawthorne effect

Back 13

change just because people are being observed

Front 14

random assignment

Back 14

everyone in sample has equal chance of being chosen for either group

Front 15

group matching

Back 15

used when you want experimental and control equal on some criteria

Front 16

Confounding variables

Back 16

any diff. btwn. experimental and control group besides ind. var.

Front 17

experimenter bias

Back 17

when experimenter unknowingly treat group members differently

Front 18

double blind

Back 18

participants and experimenters don't know what group they are in; control experimenter bias

Front 19

selection bias

Back 19

let participants choose which group they are in; control using random assignment

Front 20

demand characteristiccs

Back 20

subtle cues about purpose of experminent that participants pick up on

Front 21

single blind procedure

Back 21

control demand characteristics; particpants don't know what tgroup they are in

Front 22

Placebo effect

Back 22

expectations change behavior

Front 23

order effects

Back 23

what order treatment is given effects the outcome

Front 24

case study

Back 24

in depth study of 1 person or a small group; benefit-learn more about some condition and gives a detailed picture; drawback-can't apply results to general pop

Front 25

survey

Back 25

polling of a sample of the population to see what they think; benefits-reach large number of people easily; negative- relies on self report data, doesn't show cause and effect

Front 26

naturalistic observation

Back 26

observe people or animals in natural environment w/out interferring; benefits-ecological validity, can show 2 factors are related; negative-can't control and time consuming

Front 27

measures of central tendency

Back 27

mean, median mode

Front 28

Measures of variability

Back 28

range, variance, standard deviation,z-score; low scores vary

Front 29

range

Back 29

largest-smalllest

Front 30

variance

Back 30

how far a score is from the mean

Front 31

standard deviation (sd)

Back 31

square root of the variants

Front 32

z-score

Back 32

in nunits of standard deviation

Front 33

1 sd, 2sd, 3sd for normal curve

Back 33

34%, 14%, 2%

Front 34

normal curve

Back 34

equal number of scores above and below the mean

Front 35

positively skewed

Back 35

extremely high score pulling the mean up

Front 36

negatively skewed

Back 36

extremely low score pulling the mean down

Front 37

inferential statistics

Back 37

tell whether results are meaningful

Front 38

p-value

Back 38

tell whether diff btwn contorl and experiment group is statistically significant

Front 39

sampling error

Back 39

diff. in pop.

Front 40

validity

Back 40

measures what its supposed to measure

Front 41

reliability

Back 41

same results over and over

Front 42

Debriefing (ethical guidelines)

Back 42

tell about true purpose of the study and give contact info

Front 43

Hindsight bias

Back 43

tendency upon hearing about research findings to think that they knew it all along

Front 44

social desirability

Back 44

tendency to try to give politically correct answers

Front 45

matched pairs

Back 45

The design of an experiment for paired comparison in which the assignment of subjects to treatment or control in which randomization is restricted to occur separately within each pair.

Front 46

counterbalancing

Back 46

using participants as their own control group

Front 47

Descriptive statistics

Back 47

simply describe a set of data

Front 48

IRB

Back 48

ethics board

Front 49

histograms

Back 49

bar graphs

Front 50

frequency polygons

Back 50

line graphs

Front 51

Line of best fit/regression line

Back 51

line drawn through the scatter plot that minimizes the distance of all the points from the lien

Front 52

Statistically significant

Back 52

a p value of .05 or less