Concept ReviewResearch in Psych, 7e: Study Guide, Chapter 55-1
After you finish reading and studying each main section of the chapter, print out this document and answer the following questions to test your comprehension.
- Essential Features of Experimental Research
- What was Woodworth’s basic distinction (in his “Columbia bible”) between experimental and correlational research?
- What are the three essential features of any experiment in psychology?
- Distinguish between John Stuart Mill’s methods of Agreement and Difference, using violent TV watching and its relation to aggression as an example.
- What is an independent variable and what is meant by the term “levels” of an independent variable?
- Give examples of independent variables that are (a) situational, (b) task, and (c) instructional in nature.
- Distinguish between an experimental and a control group.
- What is a confounding variable and why is it a problem in experimental research?
- In psychological research, what is a dependent variable?
- What is the difference between a ceiling and a floor effect?
- Using the construct of anxiety, show how it could be an independent variable, a dependent variable, or an extraneous variable in need of being controlled.
- Manipulated versus Subject Variables
- What is meant by a subject variable? Give two examples.
- When drawing conclusions from studies using manipulated variables, statements about cause can be made. These statements cannot be made when using subject variables. Why?
- In Bandura’s famous Bobo study, identify the primary manipulated independent variable and its levels, the subject variable, the dependent variables, and one of the controls employed to avoid confounding.
- The Validity of Experimental Research
- Give two examples of mistakes that result in a loss of statistical conclusion validity.
- Use a study of the effects of TV violence on children’s aggression to illustrate the meaning of construct validity, as it applies to experiments.
- What is the “college sophomore” problem and how does it relate to the validity of an experiment?
- How does the distinction between individualist and collectivist cultures relate to an experiment’s validity?
- Using memory research as an example, explain what is meant by ecological validity.
- Comment on the relative importance of internal versus external validity.
- In general, what characterizes an experiment said to be high on internal validity?
- Threats to Internal Validity
- Using the example of a program designed during the first semester of college to reduce test anxiety, explain how the internal validity of a study could be reduced by either history or maturation.
- Give an example of regression to the mean. How can it affect a study’s internal validity?
- Distinguish between testing and instrumentation as threats to the internal validity of a study.
- What is a subject selection effect and how did it affect the validity of the “ulcers in executive monkeys” study?
- How might attrition reduce an experiment’s internal validity? In what sense can an attrition effect be seen as similar to a subject selection effect?
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