Exam 14: a Statistical Tools for Answering Research Questions

Fix It Morgan is a tennis coach who wants to know how to be more effective in teaching her students so she studies her current group of beginning tennis students who are between the ages of 8 and 10 years. During the first week of lessons Morgan has the children play tennis without any instruction in order to assess their base level of ability. During the second week of lessons Morgan awards stars to students each time they use the proper forehand form. Morgan continues to do this until all the students use the proper form 75% of the time. After that she continues to give stars for good form, but gives them less frequently. Morgan finds that the kids continue to exhibit good forehand techniques and decides her positive reinforcement strategy is beneficial to the teaching of tennis and is making her a more effective coach. What type of research design is Morgan using? Based on the information above, can you conclude that Morgan's method is causing the children to perform better?

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Question 1

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Morgan is using a single-subject design (Ref 12-1, p. 389). The design is an A-B design (Ref 12-1, 389). The "A" phase is the baseline phase. The "B" phase is the treatment phase during which Morgan gives out stars for proper form (Ref 12-1, p. 390). She should have stopped giving stars at some point to create an A-B-A design. Without revering back to the baseline phase she is unable to conclude that the performance of the kids was due to the treatment (Ref 12-1, p. 390). This design is a within-subjects design in which the dependent variable (proper forehand form) is measured more than once (Ref 10-1, p. 314). The problem with a within-subjects design is that a change in behavior may be due to an order effect (Ref 10-1, p. 324). Specifically, kids may be improving naturally over time due to maturation (Ref 10-1, p. 317) and not due to the treatment. Morgan may want to create a between-groups design in which one group of kids gets stars and the other does not. At the end of the lessons she can compare the performance of each group to determine whether stars did cause the change in performance (Ref 8-1, p. 243)

Fix It A group of doctors with the American Cancer Association are interested in conducting a study to better understand the effects of nicotine on brain functioning. They contact family physicians and ask them to provide the medical records of patients who are actively trying to quit smoking, who are otherwise healthy, and who have recently had a PET scan for various reasons. The physicians send the ACA doctors 78 patient records. The ACA doctors examine the PET data from each patient and find that cerebral blood flow is altered in a number of brain regions, including the hippocampus and cerebellum. The ACA doctors conclude that one of the risks associated with smoking is an alteration in cerebral flood flow. What ethical and methodological issues exist with this study? Fix it.

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It does not appear that the patients provided informed consent to have the ACA doctors review their medical records. Informed consent is related to the Belmont Report's third principle, Respect for Persons (Ref 3-1, p. 55). The family physicians violated patient confidentiality. Ethical researchers should ensure that participants do not have a loss of confidentiality (Ref 3-1, p. 65). The ACA doctors should have asked the physicians to obtain informed consent from the patients. The ACA doctors only examined smokers, and based on the PET scans concluded their cerebral blood flow is altered. The researchers should have also obtained a sample of nonsmokers as a comparison group. Without a control group the doctors are not able to make a statement about covariation between smoking and blood flow (Ref 8-1, p. 244). Having no control group significantly affects the study's internal validity (Ref 8-1, p. 242).

Fix It Dr. Ali reads a journal article arguing that concussions are related to cognitive impairments later in life. Realizing that blows to the head are the leading cause of concussions, Dr. Ali decides to study cognitive impairments in a sample of boxers. Dr. Ali identified 15 professional male boxers who are now retired and at least 60 years old. All of the boxers' matches were recorded and each boxer competed in at least 20 matches. Dr. Ali randomly selected five matches to watch for each boxer and calculates the mean number of blows each boxer received. A blow to the head was defined as any instance in which the opponent's glove made contact with the boxer from the neck up. Dr. Ali also measures the severity of each blow. Severity is defined by how many steps the boxer takes back following a blow to the head (0 steps = least severe; 5 or more steps = most severe). Dr. Ali brings the 15 boxers to his lab where he administers a neuropsychological assessment of cognitive function. On this scale, higher scores reflect more cognitive impairments. His results reveal that each boxer sustained, on average, 12 blows to the head each boxing match. The mean score of the neuropsychological data also reveals that the boxers have moderate cognitive impairments. Dr. Ali concludes that boxing is detrimental to cognitive function later in life and should be banned as a sport. Dr. Ali developed his research project based on an empirical study he read in a journal article. What do you think of that? What kind of sample did Dr. Ali obtain to test his hypothesis? What concerns and limitations do you see with Dr. Ali's study and the conclusions he drew? How might you fix them?

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Question 3

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Research questions may be based on a variety of sources (Ref 2-1, p. 24), including newspaper articles. Dr. Ali's research question is a good one because it is empirical; the question can be subjected to scientific examination (Ref 2-1, p. 25). Dr. Ali obtained a nonrandom, purposive sample (Ref 4-1, p. 104). Dr. Ali does not have a control group to which the boxers can be compared. It is possible that non-boxers have comparable deficits in cognitive function at the age of 60. He should obtain an age-matched control group before conclusions can be made. Measuring the severity of a blow to the head by how many steps back a person makes is probably not the most valid way to assess severity.

Fix It After reading about the Mozart effect, Francis wants to examine whether music makes you smarter. He asks 200 people to report how much time they listen to music during a typical week and what their IQ is. He divides the participants into two groups based on their IQ: those with an IQ of less than 100, and those with an IQ of greater than 100. He compares the amount of time each group listens to music using an independent t-test. His results indicate those with an IQ of 100 or more listen to significantly more music than those with an IQ of 100 or less. Francis presents his work at a regional psychology conference. The title of his poster, "Music Makes You Smarter," draws a lot of attention. Many people who talk to Francis about the study say his design cannot infer causality and he analyzed the data incorrectly. What do you think they are referring to? Do you think they are being too hard on him? Fix it!

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Question 4

Fix It Penny has been struggling with her weight for some time now and decides it is time for a lifestyle change. In addition to exercising daily and eating right, Penny takes Fat-Away, an all-natural herbal supplement designed to promote weight loss. To monitor her progress Penny keeps a diary in which she records things such as how she feels and what she eats each day. After 30 days Penny weighs herself and finds she has lost 15 pounds! She's thrilled with the results and decides to become a Fat-Away distributor. In her sales pitch to prospective clients, Penny describes how well Fat-Away worked for her. What's wrong with Penny's thinking? What additional information would you need to be convinced that Fat-Away causes weight loss?

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Question 5

Fix It Dr. Cheng is interested in whether people who are sleep deprived are resistant to classical conditioning. He hypothesizes that people who have been awake for an extended period will exhibit impaired learning of an association between an electrical shock and a specific geometric shape. Although he's heard that some people have reported skin irritation from the shocks in past studies, Dr. Cheng is concerned that too little shock won't be sufficient to produce a classically conditioned fear response. As such, he decides a high electrical shock is warranted despite the IRB's request to reduce it to a lower voltage. After obtaining a convenience sample of 20 healthy adult volunteers, Dr. Cheng divides them into an experimental group (n = 11) and control group (n = 9) based on their sex. He asks the experimental group to come to the lab on Friday at 9:00 a.m. and the research assistants will make sure they remain awake for 24 hours. At 9:00 a.m. on Saturday the control group, who has reportedly had a good night's rest, will arrive at the lab. Since Dr. Cheng is interested in the brain's response to fear, he examines peoples' brain activity in an fMRI scanner during a fearful event. He's found that fear leads to changes in the activity of the amygdala, the brain's fear center. The control participants come to the lab at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday, at which time Dr. Cheng puts all 20 participants in fMRI scanners to begin the classical conditioning protocol. The protocol is identical for all participants. An electrode is attached to the participants' ankle. While in the scanner the participants are shown 15 geometric shapes that differ in shape (i.e., circle, square, and triangle) and color (i.e., red, green, blue). Immediately before the red circle is presented the participants receive a painful shock. The shock does not occur prior to the presentation of any other shape. Dr. Cheng believes all of his participants will learn to be fearful of the red circle and that the activity in the amygdala will provide evidence that classical conditioning has occurred, but that people who are sleep deprived will not learn this association as quickly as those who are well rested. To determine if this is true, he plans to compare the arithmetic average amygdala activity of the sleep-deprived participants to the arithmetic average amygdala activity of the well-rested participants. Do any ethical issues exist in this study? What do you think of how Dr. Cheng assigned participants to the treatment conditions and what impact does this method of assignment have on the study? What are the problems with the way Dr. Cheng proposes to analyze the data? Fix it!

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Question 6

Fix It Extensive evidence indicates exercise improves hippocampally mediated learning and memory. Dr. Smith knows that exercise not only increases blood vessel density in the hippocampus, but also increases the rate of neurogenesis in the hippocampus, and wants to know which is involved in the exercise-induced memory improvements. To that end, 30 rats were divided into three groups. Group 1 consisted of males only. Group 2 consisted of females only. Group 3 consisted of males and females. In the first condition rats received a drug to block the formation of new neurons via IV injection. In the second condition rats received a drug to block the formation of new blood vessels via oral administration. In the third condition, which was the control condition, rats received nothing. All animals were permitted to exercise at will for two weeks on a running wheel located in their home cage. Dr. Smith examines how well the rats perform a spatial learning task. He finds that rats in the antineurogenesis condition perform much more poorly on the task than the rats in the anti-angiogenesis and control conditions. Dr. Smith concludes new neurons are important for spatial learning, but new blood vessels are not. How is this study confounded? Fix it!

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Question 7

Fix It Dr. Violet wants to teach his Introduction to Psychology students a lesson on the importance of science in psychology. He begins the semester by asking them if they have heard of "Shango." Shango, he explains, is a juice that contains mangosteen fruit, which are rich in xanthones. He recently began drinking six ounces of the juice each day based on a television ad he saw that describe its anti-inflammatory and antiviral properties. Every couple of weeks Dr. Violet tells his class he's feeling better than ever and has not gotten sick yet this semester so the Shango is definitely doing its job. At the end of the semester Dr. Violet asks his students if they would be interested in trying Shango for themselves. Sixty of his 75 students are interested. He gives them the information on how to order the product. The next day he reviews hypothesis testing. The hypothesis he uses as an example in class is "Shango prevents colds." He puts students into groups of five to develop a research plan to test the hypothesis. Discuss what the students probably came up with during this exercise. Do you think most of the students still wanted to try Shango? Discuss why.

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Question 8

Fix It Dr. Parmentier wants to know if exercise improves memory. He recruits 30 undergraduates from his university and puts the name of each student in a hat. The first student he selects is assigned to an exercise condition. The next student he selects is assigned to the inactive control condition. He repeats this process until all students are assigned to one of the two conditions. Participants in the exercise condition are taken to the university's gym and told to exercise for 30 minutes. The gym has a variety of exercise equipment, including treadmills, elliptical trainers, stationary bikes, and strength training machines for them to use. What type of sampling method did Dr. Parmentier use? How did Dr. Parmentier assign participants to treatment conditions? What is the problem with how the researcher defines exercise? How would you fix it?

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Question 9

Fix It Noah is a social psychologist interested in childhood aggression. He recruits children by posting flyers at pediatric offices and receives 74 volunteers. The guardians of the children provide informed consent for the children to participate. Noah schedules the children to come to his lab, where he has created an environment that is comparable with a classroom setting. Noah has the children watch a cartoon before entering the lab. Some children see a violent cartoon, some see a nonviolent cartoon. He counts how many times each child behaves aggressively, and finds that kids who watched a violent cartoon prior to entering the simulated classroom environment are more aggressive than kids who watched a nonviolent cartoon. Describe issues with validity associated with this study, as well as ethical considerations.

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Question 10

Fix It Dr. Everdeen is interested in developing a self-report instrument to measure propensity toward violence in teenagers. To that end, she creates a list of 25 items she believes may measure propensity toward violence. Some of the items include "I would never harm my parent/s or sibling/s," "I would never harm my pet/s," and "I would never harm my best friend." Responses to all items are based on a 5-point Likert scale where 1 indicates very true and 5 indicates very untrue. She administers this survey, along with another survey known to identify beliefs supportive of aggression, to five of her closest friends. She finds a strong correlation between the two measures and concludes her survey is a valid and reliable assessment of violent tendencies. What issues do you see with how Dr. Everdeen went about creating her instrument? Fix them!

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Question 11

Fix It Dr. Holbrook recently read in a popular magazine that kids who participate in formal music education are more likely to get into an Ivy League college. Presuming getting into a good school is related to intelligence, Dr. Holbrook wants to test whether music lessons are related to IQ. To that end, Dr. Massey randomly selects five Ivy League schools and contacts the registrar at each school to request the names of the currently enrolled undergraduates. Of the 8,527 students identified, she randomly selects 3,000 and sends each a survey. A total of 1,374 students complete the survey. Of the questions on the survey, three were critical to testing the hypothesis. The first question assessed whether the student received music lessons as a child. The second assessed how long the student took lessons. The third question asked for the student's cumulative GPA. Dr. Holbrook found that 78% of the survey respondents participated in formal music lessons as children. She used Pearson's r to determine the relationship between length of music lessons and GPA. She found a statistically significant relationship (r = .48, p < .05). Based on this information Dr. Holbrook concludes that taking music lessons as a child does, in fact, make one more likely to get into a good college. She also concludes that music lessons cause one to have a higher GPA. Dr. Holbrook developed her research project based on something she read in a magazine. What do you think of that? What do you think about the sample Dr. Holbrook obtained to test her hypothesis? What concerns and limitations do you see with Dr. Holbrook's study and the conclusions she drew? How might you fix them?

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Question 12

Fix It Each semester, Dr. Lawrence administers a comprehensive final exam to her Biology I students. She is always surprised at how poorly students do on the exam and decides to investigate why. This semester Dr. Lawrence adds one last question to the exam. The question asks "How well do you think you did on this exam?" and the response items are 1 = exceptional, 2 = above average, 3 = average, 4 = below average, 5 = poor. Consistent with past exams, students perform relatively poorly on this exam. The mean score was 68%. Interestingly, she finds that most students felt they did well on the exam. Nearly 75% of the class indicated they thought they did at least above average, 20% of the class felt they did average, and only 5% said they performed below average. Discuss the discrepancy between actual exam scores and perceived performance. Describe how Dr. Lawrence should test whether a relationship between actual test performance and perceived test performance exists.

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Question 13

Fix It Mr. Caputo is an administrator at a women's prison. Lately there have been a lot of physical altercations between inmates. The traditional form of punishment for fighting is being put into the solitary housing unit for 7 days, but since this doesn't seem to be working Mr. Caputo decides to explore alternative punitive methods. He decides to conduct a study that he hopes will solve the fighting problem at the prison. He also hopes to present the results at a regional prison administrator convention. To that end, he divides the 1,500 inmates into groups of 150. Each group is required to attend a focus group. To ensure that everyone participates, Mr. Caputo withholds access to the commissary until they complete the study. During the focus group a moderator asks questions such as "What kinds of things cause fights in prison?" and "How do you think fighting can be prevented?" Dr. Caputo also administers surveys to inmates to examine their aggressive tendencies and how fearful they are of prison life. At the end of the study Mr. Caputo discovers that the fights seem to be initiated by the inmates who work in the cafeteria, and fights seem to occur just after fresh produce is delivered to the prison. Based on these results Mr. Caputo decides to replace the kitchen staff and replace fresh produce with frozen fruits and vegetables. He uses this data to convince his colleagues at other prisons to do the same. What kind of research is Mr. Caputo conducting? What problems do you see with this study? Fix it!

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Question 14

Fix It A large American retailer wanted to increase their sales on Black Friday. They hired a consulting firm that recommended they price-match any of their competitors' Black Friday prices. The retailer measured the total number of shoppers, total number of products sold, and total profit made on Black Friday. The results indicated the marketing strategy was successful. Compared with the prior Black Friday, this year's marketing strategy caused more shoppers, an increase in the number of items sold, and an increase in profit. The retailer concluded the new marketing strategy was an excellent investment that they will continue to use. Do you think the retailer is making a good decision? Why? What would you recommend they do?

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Question 15

Fix It Dr. Arvey is interested in gender stereotypes. She notices the color of a popular social networking website is blue and wonders what might happen if it were also offered in pink. She hypothesizes that when given the choice of colors, men will be more likely to keep their profiles blue and women will be more likely to switch their profiles to pink. She also thinks that being able to choose the default color on the social networking site will increase one's use of the site. To that end, Dr. Arvey puts up flyers around campus asking for volunteers to participate in research, and she ultimately obtains a sample of 90. She wants to conduct the study in her school's computer lab where the participants can access their social media accounts. The computer lab has 30 seats so she asks the volunteers to sign up for one of three sessions. By running 30 participants at a time she believes she is being very efficient in data collection. What methodologic issues exist in this procedure? Fix it.

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Question 16

Fix It Dr. King recently read an article that claimed kids' meals make up 20% of one of the largest fast-food burger chain's sales. Dr. King believes that the percent of kids' meals purchased would be significantly reduced if they did not include prizes. Dr. King creates an experiment to determine the impact of prizes on children selecting a kids' meal over other meal options. He recruits 150 local elementary-school children whose parents report their family frequents fast food chains two or more times each week, on average. The children are brought into the lab where they are told they will be interviewed about their lifestyle. They are also told they will get a free meal of their choosing to thank them for their participation. Each child is provided the following options: Meal 1 is a hamburger, fries, and soft drink. Meal 2 is a hamburger, fries, soft drink, and a prize. Meal 3 is a grilled chicken wrap, apple slices, juice box, and a prize. Dr. King records how many children select each meal. He finds that only 13 children selected meal 1. The remaining 137 children are split between meals 2 and 3 (68 children selected meal 2 and 69 selected meal 3). What statistical test should Dr. King use to determine a difference in meal preference? Are there ethical implications involved in deceiving kids into thinking they were being studied about their physical activity? What other issues might the IRB have considered when reviewing this study? Fix it!

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Question 17

Fix It Dr. Fallon wants to know whether pet owners are happier than people who do not own pets. She recruits volunteers by placing flyers around the university that indicate participants are needed for a study on happiness. A total of 150 individuals respond to the ad and participate in the study. After giving informed consent, participants completed a demographic questionnaire, as well as the Subjective Happiness Scale. On the demographic questionnaire the participants reported their sex, age, ethnicity, how many pets they owned, what kind of pets they owned, and for how many years they owned each pet. Dr. Fallon used the demographic questionnaire to divide participants into two groups: those who owned pets and those who did not own pets. He used a t-test to compare whether pet owners were happier than people who did not own pets. The results revealed a statistically significant difference in happiness between the two groups (t(149) = 5.83, p < .05), with pet owners reporting greater levels of happiness than people who do not own pets. Dr. Fallon concludes that owning a pet causes happiness. Do you think Dr. Fallon disguised the purpose of the experiment appropriately? What do you think of Dr. Fallon's statement of causality? How would you fix these issues?

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Question 18

Fix It On his Experimental Psychology final exam, Aaron is asked to describe the similarities and differences between experiments and nonexperiments. His answer is as follows: First, experiments are the best research method. Second, experiments have independent variables, things that the researcher manipulates such as temperature of the room, or difficulty of task. In nonexperimental designs there are no independent variables because researchers do not directly manipulate anything. Validity differs between experiments and nonexperiments. Whereas experiments have less internal validity than nonexperiments, nonexperiments usually have less external validity than experiments. Statistical methods are different for both methods. t-tests and ANOVAs can be used to analyzed experiments, whereas Pearson's r is used to analyze nonexperiments. Sampling also differs between the two methods. Experiments always use random sampling methods and nonexperiments use nonrandom sampling methods. Also, in experiments participants are masked to the purpose of the study, but are not in nonexperiments. In both methods it is important to have a large sample size, when possible, to increase power. Both types of research usually require IRB approval. Identify and discuss two things that are inaccurate in Aaron's essay, as well as two things that are accurate.

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Question 19

Fix It Dr. Rodgers is good friends with Mike McCarthy, the head coach for the Green Bay Packers. One day McCarthy tells Dr. Rodgers that the NFL has been talking about the negative effects of playing professional football. They decide to conduct a student to determine whether professional football players are more likely to develop dementia than other professional athletes. To that end, Dr. Rodgers randomly selects 20 players from the Green Bay Packers and 20 players from the Professional Golfing Association (PGA). He presents each participant with 40 word pairs to study for ten minutes. Following a five minute distractor task, Dr. Rodgers presents the participants one word of each word pair and tells them to speak the second half of the word pair. The total number of correctly recalled words is used to measure memory. Dr. Rodgers performs Pearson's r to see whether memory is related to the number of years each participant has played football or golf professionally. He finds no relationship between memory and years played (r (38) = +.07, p > .05). Dr. Rodgers and Mr. McCarthy present this information to the NFL to assure them football is no more dangerous than other professional sports. Do you think Dr. Rodgers answered the research question appropriately? What concerns to you have with the research design and analysis? Fix it!

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Question 20

Showing 1 - 20 of 50

Psychology As Science: Thinking Like a Researcher

The Research Process: Ideas to Innovations

Ethics: Making Ethical Decisions in Research

The Psychologists Toolbox: Tools for Building Better Designs

Qualitative Research: Getting Into the Mind of a Serial Killer

Observational Research: the Many Forms of Discipline in Parents Bag of Tricks

Survey Design and Scale Construction: Is Going Greek a Great Idea

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Mixed Design: Which Therapy Is Best for Treating Eating Disorders

Using Research in the Real World: How Do You Know If You Are Truly Helping

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