Unit 1.2 (How to research)

A specification of how a researcher measures a research variable in a study is known as…?

• Standard deviation

• Inference

• Operational definition

• Replication

• Random assignment

Which technique listed below involves re-creating the essence of an earlier research study with different participants and in different circumstances to test its accuracy?

• Replication

• Validity

• Random Sampling

• Double Blind Procedure

• Correlational Research

To understand the unusual behavior of an adult client, a clinical psychologist carefully investigates the client’s current life situation and develops an extensive report on his physical, social, cultural, and educational history. Which research method is being used?

• Survey

• Case Study

• Experimentation

• Naturalistic Observation

• Correlational Study

What is the primary limitation of the case study research method?

• It is not an empirical approach

• It does not use the scientific method

• The case study method often lacks sufficient data

• Individual cases can be misleading, inconclusive, or result in false generalizations

• Questionnaires can have too many flaws

To assess reactions to a proposed tuition hike at her college, a researcher sent a questionnaire to every fifteenth person in the college registrar’s alphabetic listing of all currently enrolled students. The researcher used the technique of…?

• Random Assignment

• Naturalistic observation

• Replication

• Correlation

• Random Sampling

Researchers are interested in studying the impact of drugs on human fetuses. In this case, why would a correlational study be more appropriate than an experiment?

• Because cause and effect can only be determined by a correlational study

• Because correlational studies allow you to observe behavior in non-artificial environments

• Because researchers using correlational studies may generalize to the population from an atypical case

• Because participants could not be ethically assigned to an experimental or control condition

• Because correlational studies permit researchers to estimate the reported behaviors of a whole population

Rick has volunteered to participate in an experiment evaluating the effectiveness of aspirin. Neither he nor the experimenters know whether the pills he takes during the experiment contain aspirin or are merely placebos. Which of the following is being used in this study?

• Single Blind Procedure

• Hindsight Bias

• Double Blind Procedure

• Random Sampling

• Overconfidence

In the hypothesis ‘Students who study a list of terms in the morning, just after waking up, will recall more terms than students who study the list just before falling asleep’, what is the dependent variable?

• The list of terms

• Students who just woke up

• Time of day

• Number of terms remembered

• Students

To provide a baseline against which they can evaluate the effects of a specific treatment, experimenters make use of a(n)..?

• Dependent Variable

• Random Sample

• Independent Variable

• Control Condition

• Experimental Condition

In survey research, what is the broader group a researcher hopes to learn about from the smaller portion of people he/she contacts?

• Populations

• Volunteers

• Samples

• Control groups

• Correlations