Psychological Research and Statistics
Final Exam Questions
Course Introduction
This course provides a comprehensive introduction to the principles and practices of psychological research, emphasizing the integral role of statistics in scientific inquiry. Students will explore research design, data collection methods, and ethical considerations underlying psychological studies. The course also covers descriptive and inferential statistics, enabling students to analyze data, interpret results, and draw evidence-based conclusions. Through practical exercises and case studies, learners will develop skills in hypothesis testing, data interpretation, and the communication of research findings, preparing them for further study or professional work in psychology and related fields.
Recommended Textbook Research Methods in Psychology Evaluating a World of Information 2nd Edition by Beth Morling
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14 Chapters
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Chapter 1: Psychology Is a Way of Thinking
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Q1) All of the following are reasons psychological scientists publish their research EXCEPT:
A)To get money from the journals where their work appears
B)To share interesting findings
C)To have their results reviewed by other psychologists
D)To provide evidence for a theory
Answer: A
Q2) Explain why the relationship between applied and basic research can best be thought of as interrelated.
Answer: Students should mention that these two types of research are best thought of as interrelated because they both inform each other.Specifically,basic research can be later used to conduct applied research and inform basic research.Students may also mention translational research.
Q3) Although not all psychology majors become producers of research,name two benefits of learning how to become a producer of research.
Answer: Several answers are acceptable,including learning to write in APA style,gaining skills necessary to work in a professor's research lab,gaining skills necessary to complete a class assignment,and becoming a more informed consumer.
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Chapter 2: Sources of Information: Evaluating, finding, and Reading Information
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Sample Questions
Q1) What does it mean that behavioral research is probabilistic?
A)Conclusions drawn from behavioral research are probably true.
B)It means that behavioral research involves probability sampling.
C)Inferences drawn from behavioral research are not expected to explain all cases.
D)Behavioral research requires the calculation of probability estimates.
Answer: C
Q2) Although Charlotte is concerned with exposure to subliminal messages,she collects data from people not exposed to subliminal messages.What is this group called? Why must this group be included in her study?
Answer: The group is called a comparison group.Students should say that this group must be included because Charlotte needs to consider what happens when people are exposed to the subliminal messages but that to determine what effect it has,she must also examine what happens among people "normally," that is,when they are not exposed to the "treatment."
Q3) Name the six basic sections of an empirical journal article.
Answer: The six basic sections of an empirical journal article are the abstract,the introduction,the Method,the Results,the Discussion,and the References.
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Chapter 3: Three Claims, four Validities: Interrogation Tools
for Consumers of Research
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Sample Questions
Q1) In this study,the authors were interested in students' math effort.Which of the following would NOT be a reasonable operational definition of math effort?
A)An earnest attempt to solve math problems
B)The number of math classes taken in college
C)A score on a standardized measure of math effort
D)The number of math problems students answered correctly
Answer: A
Q2) A common finding in the study of aggression is that exposure to television is associated with increased aggressive behavior in children.You are curious as to whether peer pressure is really to blame (peer pressure encourages you to watch television and peer pressure encourages you to be aggressive).You are questioning which of the following rules of causation?
A)The rule of covariance
B)The rule of temporal precedence
C)The third-variable rule
D)Rule of parsimony
Answer: C
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Chapter 4: Ethical Guidelines for Psychology Research
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Q1) In considering whether research is ethical,which of the following are balanced against each other?
A)Inconvenience to participants versus benefit to the researcher
B)Time investment of the study versus complexity of the study
C)Importance of the research versus financial cost to conduct the study
D)Risk to participants versus value of the knowledge gained
Q2) Which of the following ethical violations proposed by the Belmont Report was NOT committed in the Tuskegee Study?
A)Participants were harmed.
B)Participants were not treated respectfully.
C)Participants were not treated by actual doctors.
D)Participants were from a disadvantaged social group.
Q3) State the five ethical principles proposed by the APA.How do these principles differ from the Belmont principles?
Q4) After Dr.Van Ryan conducts her study,a colleague accuses Dr.Van Ryan of deleting some of the data that does not match her hypothesis.If this is true,in what type of research misconduct did Dr.Van Ryan engage? Why is this behavior a problem for the science in general?
Q5) What is plagiarism? Explain why plagiarism is an ethical violation.
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Chapter 5: Identifying Good Measurement
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Q1) Explain the difference between validity and reliability.Explain whether they are related or independent concepts.
Q2) To test his measure,Dr.Sheffield gives his measure to a group of people in Gamblers Anonymous (GA)and another group of people in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA).He finds that people in the GA group have higher scores on his new measure than people in the AA group.This procedure is known as a:
A)Test-retest paradigm
B)Known-groups paradigm
C)Prediction paradigm
D)Group evaluation paradigm
Q3) Establishing construct validity would probably be most important for which of the following?
A)A measure of blood pressure
B)A measure of the number of seizures a person has per week
C)A measure of religiosity
D)A measure of obesity
Q4) Imagine that you are trying to measure people's stress.Provide three quantitative definitions of stress: one that is ordinal,one that is interval,and one that is ratio.
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Chapter 6: Surveys and Observations: Describing What
People Do
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Q1) In his measure of "need for cognition" (the degree to which people like thinking and problem-solving),Dr.Jonason asks his participants to rate their agreement with the following statement: "People who think a lot are really lame." What is the problem with this question?
A)It is a forced-choice question.
B)It is a double-barreled question.
C)It has a double negative.
D)It is a leading question.
Q2) What is an advantage of open-ended questions? What is a disadvantage?
Q3) Dr.Leman is interested in using a survey to study people's experiences with natural disasters,like Hurricane Sandy and the tornadoes that hit Joplin,Missouri,and Tuscaloosa,Alabama.Provide one reason why a survey is a good method to study this topic and one reason that a survey may not be a good method.
Q4) All of the following are true of observational data EXCEPT:
A)Observational measures tend to have good construct validity.
B)Observational measures cannot be used in making causal claims.
C)Observational measures can be used in frequency claims.
D)Observational measures tend to provide richer information than survey data.
Page 8
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Chapter 7: Sampling: Estimating the Frequency of
Behaviors and Beliefs
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Q1) The difference between a cluster sample and a multistage sample is:
A)Cluster samples are probability samples;multistage samples are not
B)Multistage samples sample both clusters and participants;cluster samples just sample clusters
C)Cluster samples rely on clusters of participants;multistage samples collect data from participants at different stages
D)There is no difference between them
Q2) What is the most common sampling technique in behavioral research?
A)Simple random sampling
B)Purposive sampling
C)Cluster sampling
D)Convenience sampling
Q3) Which of the following statements is true of random assignment and random sampling?
A)Random assignment is necessary for internal validity,whereas random assignment is necessary for external validity.
B)They both are necessary for frequency claims.
C)They both mean the same thing.
D)Random sampling is more important than random assignment.
Page 9
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Chapter 8: Bivariate Correlational Research
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Q1) Which of the following conclusions can Dr.Oswald draw about the number of friends one has and life satisfaction,based on her statistical analyses?
A)The probability of her sample coming from a zero association population is about 4%.
B)The probability of her sample coming from a zero association population is about 96%.
C)The relationship is not statistically significant.
D)The strong correlation means that the number of friends one has causes an increase in life satisfaction.
Q2) In determining whether the relationship between two of her variables was statistically significant,which of the following must be considered?
A)Sample size and number of variables analyzed
B)Direction of the association and strength of the association
C)Sample size and effect size
D)The number of outliers and the direction of the association
Q3) Draw a scatterplot for the three associations found by Dr.Moynihan.
Q4) Of the three findings in Dr.Moynihan's study,which finding has the largest effect size? Name two things that having a large effect size means.
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Chapter 9: Multivariate Correlational Research
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Q1) Which of the following can be concluded based on the results of Dr.Sparrow's study?
A)As the number of arguments a couple has increases,their marital satisfaction increases as well,controlling for income but not life satisfaction.
B)The relationship between life satisfaction and marital satisfaction has the weakest effect size.
C)The beta for the relationship between life satisfaction and marital satisfaction is significantly different than zero.
D)Income is a stronger predictor of martial satisfaction than either the number of arguments or life satisfaction.
Q2) Which of the following correlations is a cross-lag correlation?
A)Both Correlations 1 and 6
B)Both Correlations 2 and 5
C)Both Correlations 3 and 4
D)Both Correlations 3 and 5
Q3) Using Dr.Uchida's study,identify a mediating variable and a moderating variable and explain the difference between the two types of variables.
Q4) List the predictor and dependent/criterion variables in Dr.Nguyen's study.
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Chapter 10: Introduction to Simple Experiments
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Q1) Which of the following allows Dr.Lonsbary to conclude that she met the covariance rule for causality?
A)Noting that there is a difference between the number of words recalled by the happy and neutral people
B)Having people listen to music or silence before they wrote down the list of words they remembered
C)Making sure that all participants were asked to remember the same list of words
D)Putting the 60 participants into equal groups
Q2) Explain why Dr.Phillips cannot conduct a within-groups design.
Q3) Which of the following allows Dr.Lonsbary to conclude that she met the temporal precedence rule for causality?
A)Noting that there is a difference between the number of words recalled by the happy and neutral people
B)Having people listen to music or silence before they wrote down the list of words they remembered
C)Making sure that all participants were asked to remember the same list of words
D)Putting the 60 participants into equal groups
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Chapter 11: More on Experiments: Confounding and Obscuring Variables
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Q1) Which of the following threats to internal validity will Dr.Bloedorn NOT be worried about?
A)Testing effect
B)Attrition
C)Instrumentation
D)Placebo effects
Q2) Which of the following is NOT true of testing effects?
A)It can be prevented by use of a control group.
B)It can lead to increased/higher scores.
C)It can lead to decreased/lower scores.
D)It can sensitize people to being tested.
Q3) Which of the following threats to internal validity CANNOT occur in just any study?
A)Observer bias
B)History threats
C)Placebo effects
D)Demand characteristics
Q4) Provide three reasons why Armand's study may have resulted in null effects.
Q5) Explain how within-group variance can obscure between-group differences.
Page 13
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Chapter 12: Experiments With More Than One Independent
Variable
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Q1) If a person describes the results of a study to you by saying that there is a zero difference in one condition but a large difference in another condition,they are most likely describing which of the following?
A)A crossover interaction
B)A spreading interaction
C)A three-way interaction
D)A difference interaction
Q2) Dr.Gavin decides that instead of conducting a 2×4 independent-groups factorial design,he is going to conduct a 2×3×4 mixed factorial design.Which of the following things will NOT have to change?
A)The number of main effects that need to be examined
B)The number of interactions that need to be examined
C)The number of participants needed
D)The number of researchers needed
Q3) Using the data table alone,discuss whether Dr.Lopez should conclude that an interaction exists in his study.
Q4) Explain why researchers care about interactions more than main effects.
Q5) Using Dr.Lopez's study as an example,explain why an interaction is often described by saying "it depends."
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Chapter 13: Quasi-Experiments and Small-N Designs
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Q1) In addition to measuring the group of participants who joined a fraternity/sorority,Dr.Fletcher decides to give the same measure to another group of 55 participants who decided to not join a fraternity/sorority.This type of design is known as a/an:
A)Interrupted time-series design
B)Nonequivalent control group design
C)Nonequivalent groups interrupted time-series design
D)Reversal design
Q2) In which of the following ways are correlational designs similar to quasi-experimental designs?
A)They both use nonrandom samples.
B)They both suffer from possible threats to internal validity.
C)They both use random assignment.
D)They both use small numbers of participants.
Q3) According to the textbook,which of the following ethical questions might be posed specifically in reference to a reversal design?
A)Is it ethical to remove an effective treatment?
B)Is it ethical to treat only one person?
C)Can confidentiality be assured?
D)Can consent be given?
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Chapter
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Q1) Replication-plus-extensions can add any of the following EXCEPT:
A)A new participant variable
B)A new situational variable
C)A new control variable
D)A new independent variable
Q2) Which of the following is NOT a major type of replication?
A)Statistical replication
B)Direct replication
C)Replication-plus-extension
D)Conceptual replication
Q3) Mark decides to conduct a variation of the original study in which he measures participants' ability to solve verbal analogies as the cognitive task instead of measuring their ability to solve math problems.He finds that people who drink caffeine beforehand solve more verbal analogies than those who drink water beforehand,suggesting caffeine consumption causes improved cognitive performance.This study is known as a:
A)Statistical replication
B)Replication-plus-extension
C)Conceptual replication
D)Secondary replication
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