Week 1 Review

1. When researchers claim that their research is empirical, they are stating that it is:
a. Based on observations and measurements
2. Researchers investigating the effects of aging on cognition have found that as we get older, our
short-term memory deteriorates. This is an example of what kind of pattern of relationship if we
are measuring age and the effectiveness of short-term memory?
a. Negative relationship association
3. In an experiment, which variable measures the outcome?
a. A dependent variable
4. When we are conducting a study that examines the effects of a program on some outcomes, we
are conducting:
a. Causal research
5. We are studying a compensatory education program and its effects on achievement. If we
hypothesize that the program will increase achievement scores we are stating ____.
a. A one-tailed hypothesis
6. The right of a research participant to not have his/her name revealed to others is called:
a. Confidentiality
7. Which of the following is a characteristic that we can expect of a good abstract for a journal
article?
a. Highlights the research methodology
8. Briefly identify and describe the four major parts of a journal article describing a single
experiment.
- Introduction
o Explains the topic of the study
o Lays out the empirical and theoretical background for the research
o States the specific research questions, goals, or hypotheses for the current study
- Methods
o Contains participants, materials, procedure, and apparatus
o Gives enough detail that if you want to repeat the study without consulting the
authors
- Results
o Describes the quantitative and relevant qualitative results of the study; including
the statistical tests the authors used to analyze the data
- Discussion
o Summarizes the research question and methods and indicates how well the data
supported the hypothesis
o Discuss the studys significance
9. What is deception? Why is it sometimes necessary? When is it never acceptable?
10. What does it mean to say that data analyses are summaries?


Week 2 Review Questions

1. If we look at the average college entrance exam score for all first year college students in the
United States, wed be recording what is referred to as a:
a. Statistic of that population
2. Which of the following statements about standard error is most accurate?
a. The greater the size of a sample in a research project, the smaller the standard error.
3. Three hundred adolescents sign up for a research project that only one hundred can complete.
If each adolescent has a 33.3% chance of being selected for the project, then the sampling
process is considered:
a.
4. If one thousand college sophomores sign up for a research project designed to assess
attitudes towards dating, what must the researcher do to insure a proportionate stratified
random if gender and ethnic differences may be critical?
a.
5. What is the sampling technique that is best used when there is a large geographical area to
cover?
a.
6. For which of the following reasons are samples typically used?
a. Collecting information from a population may be prohibitively expensive in terms of
time and money.
b. In many cases, it is impossible to collect information on all people in a population.
c. The sample accurately reflects the characteristics of the population.
d. All of the above
7. When we generalize in our study from a sample to its population (the theoretical concept for
the sample), we are relying on:
a. External validity
8. A representative sample:
a. Is always randomly selected
9. In a sampling situation, a synonym for systematic error is _____.
a. Bias?
10. Many, probably most, samples used in psychological research are not truly random. What is
lost in a non-probability sample? When is it particularly important to sample randomly?
11. What steps did we take in our replication of the Latane and Bidwell study to increase the
representativeness of the observations that we sampled?
12. Experiment 3 of the Latane & Bidwell study and the Consumer Reports study (described in
Seligman) both used a conditional sampling procedure. What is this? Why is it important when
interpreting the results from such a study to be aware that these procedures were used?
13. Seligman was concerned that, the Consumer Reports study, a "success bias" might underlie
the trend that greater success for those who continued in therapy longer. How might such a
bias work? What evidence is there in the study to suggest that a success bias was not a
confounding factor?
14. Identify each of the following three terms and describe their relation to one another: response,
statistic, population parameter.
15. What does an implicit-association test purport to measure? How might the data obtained
using implicit-association techniques differ from that obtained by asking participants about
the same issues?

Week 3 Review Questions