AP Psychology Unit 0 - Research Methods

A researcher wants to investigate whether listening to classical music before a test improves students' performance. She randomly assigns students to two groups: one listens to classical music, and the other sits in silence before the test. What is the independent variable in this experiment?

• The students' test scores

• The type of pre-test activity (listening to music or silence)

• The difficulty of the test

• The number of students in each group

A psychologist is designing a study to test the effects of sleep deprivation on memory recall. She must ensure that her results are not influenced by confounding variables. Which of the following strategies would best help her achieve this?

• Only testing participants in the morning

• Randomly assigning participants to sleep-deprived and non-sleep-deprived groups

• Allowing participants to choose their group

• Using only college students as participants

A student claims that people who eat breakfast every day have higher academic achievement. To test this claim, which research method would provide the strongest evidence for a causal relationship?

• Case study

• Naturalistic observation

• Experiment

• Survey

• Studying more causes higher exam scores

• Higher exam scores cause students to study more

• There is a relationship between studying and exam scores, but causation cannot be determined

• There is no relationship between studying and exam scores

A psychologist wants to ensure her experiment is double-blind. Which of the following best describes a double-blind procedure?

• Only the participants know which group they are in

• Only the researcher knows which group each participant is in

• Neither the participants nor the researchers know which group each participant is in

• Both the participants and researchers know which group each participant is in

A researcher is planning a study on the effects of caffeine on reaction time. She wants to generalize her findings to all high school students. Which sampling method would best help her achieve this goal?

• Convenience sampling from her own class

• Random sampling from all high school students in her city

• Using only volunteers who like coffee

• Selecting students from the school’s honors program

A student is reviewing a published study and notices that the researchers did not include a control group. What is the most significant limitation of this study design?

• It is more expensive to conduct

• It cannot establish a baseline for comparison

• It is easier to replicate

• It increases the sample size

A psychologist is analyzing data from an experiment and finds that the mean is much higher than the median. What does this suggest about the distribution of the data?

• The data are normally distributed

• The data are negatively skewed

• The data are positively skewed

• The data have no skew

A researcher wants to test the hypothesis that stress impairs memory. She plans to use a standardized memory test after exposing participants to a stressful situation. Which of the following best describes the dependent variable in this study?

• The stressful situation

• The participants' scores on the memory test

• The number of participants

• The age of the participants

A student is designing a survey to measure attitudes toward school uniforms. Which of the following steps would best help ensure the reliability of the survey results?

• Asking only one question

• Using clear and consistent wording for all questions

• Allowing participants to skip questions

• Including questions on unrelated topics