Exam 2: Reading and Evaluating Scientific Research

Correlational research designs are NOT appropriate for purposes of _______________.

How does conducting a double-blind study attempt to remedy the effect of bias?

A university president asks her psychology department chair if the university has more male or more female undergraduate psychology majors. What measure of central tendency is she asking about?

_______________ are a set of techniques used to organize, summarize, and interpret data.

Which of the following is NOT a strength of the experiment as a research method? a. Cause-and-effect relationships can be established. b. Experimental conditions usually seem realistic to subjects. c. Experiments can usually be replicated if the findings are valid. d. Variables can be analyzed carefully because of the degree of control over them.

A subset of cases selected from a larger population is a __________. a. control group b. target group c. treatment group d. sample

Support for a claim that is based on a story about an individual or event is called ___________ evidence.

Brittany, a softball player who plays catcher for the local college, has thrown out base stealers at a 42, 39, and 41 percent rate over her three years. Her performance could be considered which of the following?

A large group of people whom you want to know about is called a __________. a. control group b. treatment group c. population d. sample

__________ is consistency of measurement.

One difficulty in conducting medical research is that participants often assume that any treatment will be effective in alleviating their symptoms. Therefore, a researcher has to design an experiment that measures the influence of ____________.

As part of an assignment, Linda's class was asked to complete an anonymous questionnaire on sexual discrimination. Which research method was Linda's professor using? a. field experiment b. survey c. naturalistic observation d. laboratory experiment

If researchers wanted to study the effect of various factors on reaction time, which factor would require the researchers to use a quasi-experimental design instead of an experimental design?

The process of establishing causal relationships is associated most with: a. naturalistic observation. b. experiments. c. correlation. d. surveys.

Why it is a bad idea to draw conclusions from anecdotal evidence?

Imagine an experiment where the mean of the experimental group is 50 and the mean of the control group is 40. Given that the two means are obviously different, is it still possible for a researcher to say that the two groups are not significantly different?

A psychologist wanted to see if people are more prone to seek the company of others when anxious than when calm. He randomly assigned half of his subjects to an anxiety group and then told them that, as part of the study, they would receive electric shocks. He did not frighten the other group of subjects. Finally, he recorded how many subjects in each group chose to be "tested" in a group setting and how many chose to be "tested" alone. In this study, the group that was NOT frightened would be called the ____________ group. a. experimental b. control c. placebo d. test

__________ is the extent to which a measure assesses what it claims to measure.

The purpose of operational definitions in science is to:

Tabitha is convinced that vaccines cause autism because her friend's child was diagnosed with autism only a week after being vaccinated. Because Tabitha's "evidence" is essentially a story about one person, it should be considered _________________ and cannot be considered reliable.