Exam 4: A: The Psychologists Toolbox: Tools for Building Better Designs

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Self-report measures are any measurement technique that directly asks the participant how they think or feel.Behavioral measures are measures of the participants' actions in a research design.The greatest advantage of self-report measures is that they are able to use the wealth of knowledge that participants have about themselves.They also tend to be relatively inexpensive,quick,and easy to administer.A disadvantage is that they are open to biases,including social desirability bias (the tendency for respondents to give answers that make them look good)and demand characteristics (a cue that makes participants aware of what the experimenter expects and potentially causes them to change their responses).Behavioral measures are less subject to social desirability bias and demand characteristics (although both could potentially still be an issue).They are also likely to be more genuine,as behaviors are harder to fake.However,behavioral measures can be more costly,time consuming,and effortful (both in administration and analyzing).Perhaps the biggest disadvantage of behavioral data is that information about participants' thoughts and feelings must be inferred from their actions.This subjectivity can lead to potential errors in interpretation.

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The "college sophomore problem" is when researchers use the convenience sample of college students (almost exclusively)to test hypotheses and draw conclusions.The assumption is that random sampling is not necessary because psychological processes are universal to all humans.However,this assumption may not be true for all psychological processes.To the extent that researchers are examining a phenomenon that they have reason to believe is universal,then the "college sophomore problem" should have few negative consequences on data,conclusions,or the larger field.However,not all psychological phenomena are universal and it is misleading to think that all processes in undergraduates mimic (or map on to)those of older and/or less educated adults.If researchers over rely on this convenience sample they may be limiting the generalizability of research findings to a very small subset of people,thereby doing a disservice to the entire field of psychology.

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APA-style reports contain: (1)title page - the first page that identifies the title of the work,authors,and institutional affiliations; (2)abstract - a short summary of the entire research report that addresses the research topic,methodology,findings,and conclusions; (3)introduction - background literature on the topic under investigation,as well as a justification for the importance of the work and the hypotheses; (4)method - details about the sample,materials,and procedure of collecting data; (5)results - how the hypotheses were tested,explaining through statistical language,narrative,and tables and graphs; (6)discussion - where the researcher interprets,explains,and applies the results of the study;and (7)reference page - when referenced works are given credit.