Exam 4: How Psychologists Use the Scientific Method: Data Collection Techniques and Research Designs

An operational definition is a definition of a concrete concept that makes it abstract for the purpose of the research study.

Due to their exploratory nature, case studies never focus on rare or unusual cases.

The research design that allows researchers to gain a lot of descriptive information about a single individual or institution is a(n) ______.

Archival Analysis is a data collection technique that involves analysis of preexisting data.

Observing behaviors as they occur in an individual's natural environment uses the ______ observation technique.

A ______ relationship indicates that as values on one variable increase, the values on the other variable decrease.

Studies of the amnesiac H.M. used the ______ research design.

Explain why use of the naturalistic observation technique is likely to increase the external validity of a study.

A researcher who examines the causal relationship between amount of exercise (randomly assigned as 30 minutes per day or none) and memory abilities is using the ______ research design.

A graph showing the relationship between two dependent variables for a group of individuals is called a ______.

Corporations may also make archival data sets available to researchers who wish to study workplace behaviors such as work productivity.

A researcher who examines the difference in anxiety level between individuals who smoke and those who do not smoke is using the ______ research design.

Systematic observations are often collected in a ______.

Participants who want to portray themselves more positively to the researcher and intentionally respond in a way that achieves that goal biases the results of a survey and is called ______.

In a scatterplot, one variable is placed on the x-axis, and the other variable is placed on the r-axis.

Ruling out alternative explanations for results increases the ______ validity.

Numerical data is considered to be ______.

To increase the internal validity of a study, a researcher controls for extraneous factors that can affect the observations.

Videotaping individuals at work to look for off-task behaviors is an example of ______ observation technique.

For the instruction type study in the above question (19), the dependent variable is ______.