VCE Psychology Key Science Skills

In an experiment, the ___________ variable is tested by the researcher to observe its effect(s) on the ___________ variable.

• Independent; dependent

• Extraneous; confounding

• Dependent; independent

• Independent; extraneous

When performance of one task by participants in an experiment affects their performance in a second experimental task, this confounding variable is commonly referred to as a/an

• Order effect

• Placebo effect

• Experimenter effect

• Confounding effect

In a study of pain medications, injections of a saline solution (which contains no chemicals) were shown to be quite effective for relieving pain. This is an example of

• the experimenter effect

• the placebo effect

• an order effect

• use of non-standardised instructions and procedures

Miss Jessulat is researching whether doing practice questions improves her students' Psychology understanding. An operationalised DV for this study could be:

• psychology understanding

• number of practice questions completed

• number of psychology classes attended

• mean score on a psychology exam

Ms Greenhill is researching whether caffeine affects how well her students can concentrate in class. She is particularly concerned about controlling individual participant differences. To eliminate the effects of this CV, Ms Greenhill should:

• Use a repeated measures design

• Use an independent measures design with a large sample

• Use a control group

• Use an independent measures design with a small sample

Single-blind procedures control for ______________, while double-blind procedures also control for _______________.

• the experimenter effect; the placebo effect

• order effects; the placebo effect

• the placebo effect; the experimenter effect

• the placebo effect; order effects

A cross-sectional study is not a true experiment because:

• there is no true control group

• participants cannot be randomly allocated to groups

• participants cannot be randomly sampled

• there is no true dependent variable

Within a case study, a students' Psychology exam score would be _________________, and a sentence describing how they felt after receiving their exam score would be ________________.

• Primary data; secondary data

• Secondary data; primary data

• Qualitative data; quantitative data

• Quantitative data; qualitative data

A low standard deviation means that:

• a conclusion cannot be drawn from the data

• there is high variability in scores

• the scores are clustered around the mean

• the mode should be used instead of the median

Mrs Burley is conducting research on her dog, Ella, and wants to ensure that her research is reliable. She should:

• conduct a case study, as there is only one participant

• replicate her research using other dogs

• use a repeated measures design, as there is only one participant

• conduct her research as an observation in a naturalistic setting