Research Methods in Psychology Study Guide Questions
Course Introduction
Research Methods in Psychology introduces students to the fundamental principles and techniques used to investigate psychological questions scientifically. This course covers a variety of research designs, including experiments, correlational studies, surveys, and observational methods, and emphasizes the importance of ethical considerations in conducting research with human participants. Students will learn how to formulate research questions, operationalize variables, collect and analyze data, and communicate findings effectively. Through hands-on assignments and critical evaluation of published studies, students gain practical skills in applying statistical tools, interpreting results, and understanding the strengths and limitations of different methodological approaches within psychology.
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Statistics for People Who Think They Hate Statistics Excel 2010 Edition 3rd Edition
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by Neil J. Salkind
Chapter 1: Statistics
Sadistics?
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Q1) Which of the following would be used to describe the type of statistical methods used to make inferences about the population based on a sample?
A) Inferential statistics
B) Descriptive statistics
C) Sampling methods
D) Population methods
Answer: A
Q2) What is a function?
Answer: A function is a predefined formula.
Q3) Which of the following individuals used statistics methods during the 17th century to study the intelligence of his family members?
A) Charles Darwin
B) Francis Galton
C) Isaac Newton
D) Alfred Binet
Answer: B
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Chapter 2: Means to an End: Computing and Understanding Averages
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Q1) Calculate the median for the following data set: 5, 15, 10, 15, 5, 10, 10, 20, 25, 15
Answer: The median is 12.5
Q2) Which of the following requires you to multiply a set of scores by the frequency of their occurrence, add the total of these products, and divide by the total number of scores?
A) arithmetic mean
B) harmonic mean
C) geometric mean
D) weighted mean
Answer: D
Q3) What are the measures of central tendency discussed in the textbook?
Answer: Mean, median, mode
Q4) When the data are categorical in nature and values can fit into only one class, such as hair color or political affiliation, which of the measures of central tendency should be used?
Answer: When the data are categorical, use the mode.
Q5) What is the mean of the following set of scores? 10, 15, 12, 18, 19, 16, 12
Answer: The mean is 14.57
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Chapter 3: Vive La Différence: Understanding Variability
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Q1) When subtracting the largest number in a distribution from the smallest, what type of variability is being calculated?
A) outliers
B) standard deviation
C) variance
D) range
Answer: D
Q2) In the formula for computing the range, what does the letter "h" represent?
A) summation
B) sample size
C) lowest score
D) highest score
Answer: D
Q3) How would you go about computing the variance for a set of scores?
Answer: You could just square the standard deviation . . . or you could use the standard deviation formula and skip the last step, which requires taking the square root.
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Chapter
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Q1) What is the term associated with the lack of symmetry in a distribution?
A) Ogive
B) Skewness
C) Kurtosis
D) Variability
Q2) If the median of a set of scores is greater than the mean, what can be said about the distribution?
A) Negatively skewed
B) Positively skewed
C) Platykurtic
D) Leptokurtic
Q3) Which of the following refers to a distribution's curve that is relatively peaked in comparison to a normal curve?
A) Platykurtic
B) Leptokurtic
C) Positive skew
D) Negative skew
Q4) Name the four ways that distributions can be different from one another.
Q5) What are the two types of skewness? Explain each.
Q6) What is the definition of a cumulative frequency distribution?
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Chapter 5: Ice Cream and Crime: Computing Correlation
Coefficients
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Q1) The correlation between variable X and variable Y is represented by which of the following?
A) R(xy)²
B) r??
C) r????
D) R?/?
Q2) If the coefficient of determination between two variables is .81, what is the coefficient of alienation?
A) .19
B) .34
C) .66
D) .90
Q3) Write the formula for the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient.
Q4) If the correlation between variables is .60, what is the coefficient of alienation?
Q5) If the coefficient of determination between two variables is .49, how strong is the relationship? Why?
Q6) What does a correlation coefficient represent?
Page 7
Q7) How do you determine the coefficient of determination and the coefficient of alienation?
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Chapter 6: Just the Truth: An Introduction to Understanding
Reliability and Validity
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Q1) If in the underlying continuum we are measuring assumed equal intervals, at what level of measurement is the associated variable being measured?
Q2) A score that you would actually record is an example of which of the following?
A) Observed score
B) True score
C) Error score
D) False score
Q3) High school class rank is highly correlated with college GPA. This is an example of what type of validity?
A) Concurrent validity
B) Predictive validity
C) Content validity
D) Construct validity
Q4) Which level of measurement is concerned only with the characteristics of an outcome that fits into a category?
Q5) What is the difference between reliability and validity?
Q6) If you were interested in describing the order of variables along a continuum, what level of measurement would you use?
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Q7) Which level of measurement provides the most information about a variable?
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Chapter 7: Hypotheticals and You: Testing Your Questions
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Q1) When might you use a one-tailed test, and when would you want to use a two-tailed test?
Q2) What test would you want to use to test a nondirectional research hypothesis?
A) One-tailed test
B) Two-tailed test
C) Nonparametric test
D) Frequency test
Q3) What is a hypothesis?
Q4) Explain the difference between the null hypothesis and a research hypothesis.
Q5) Which of the following represents a null hypothesis?
A) \(H _ { 1 } : \bar { X } _ { 1 } > \bar { X } _ { 2 }\)
B) \(H _ { 0 } : \mu _ { 1 } = \mu _ { 2 }\)
C) \(H _ { 1 : } : \bar { X } _ { 2 } \neq \bar { X } _ { 2 }\)
D) \(H _ { 0 } : \mu _ { 1 } > \mu _ { 2 }\)
Q6) Which of the following refers to the group to which you wish to generalize your results?
A) Sample
B) Population
C) Sampling error
D) General group
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Chapter 8: Are Your Curves Normal? Probability and Why It
Counts
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Q1) What are the characteristics associated with the normal curve?
Q2) How many standard deviations are included in a normal distribution with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 10?
Q3) What percentage of scores will fall between the mean and 1 standard deviation above the mean?
Q4) What is the basis for the normal curve and inferential statistics?
A) Mean
B) Asymptotic
C) Probability
D) Symmetry
Q5) How is the T score calculated?
Q6) Write the formula for calculating a z score.
Q7) What is the standard used by statisticians to determine the probability of an event occurring outside of chance alone?
A) 5%
B) 25%
C) 85%
D) 95%
Q8) What do standard scores allow researchers to do that raw scores cannot? Page 10
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Chapter 9: Significantly Significant: What It Means for You and Me
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Q1) If you conclude that your findings yield a 1-in-100 chance that differences were not due to the hypothesized reason, what is the corresponding p value?
Q2) Which of the following occurs when you accept the null hypothesis when it is really true?
A) Type I error
B) Correct decision
C) Type II error
D) Power
Q3) What is the test statistic that is calculated by the statistical procedure known as?
A) Critical value
B) Significance level
C) Obtained value
D) p value
Q4) If the obtained value is greater than the critical value, what should you do?
A) Reject the null hypothesis
B) Accept the null hypothesis
C) Set a higher p value
D) Increase your sample
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Chapter 10: Only the Lonely
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Q1) If you have designed a 99% confidence interval to estimate the population average (?) with a known standard deviation for the populationstandard deviation for the populationstandard deviation for the population (?), what is supposed to be the correct critical values range for z?
Q2) If you have a sample of size 60 and a sample mean of 8.3 was selected from a population where ? = 1.2 (the standard deviation for the population), determine the interval for the population average (?) at the 95% confidence interval.
Q3) The formula to compute the standard error of the mean requires the standard deviation for the population divided by the square root of?
A) The population average
B) The mean of the sample
C) The size of the sample
D) The standard deviation
Q4) A Z Test is preferred when the population (n) is?
A) >30
B) <30
C) =30
D) 30
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Chapter 11: t(ea) for Two (Again): Tests Between the Means of Related Groups
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Q1) What does the t test for dependent samples allow you to examine?
Q2) In a t test for dependent samples that examine the difference between a pretest and posttest, what type of hypothesis is used?
A) Nondirectional
B) Directional
C) Null
D) Research
Q3) In the following, what are the degrees of freedom: t???? = 2.001, p < .05?
A) 29
B) 30
C) 31
D) 32
Q4) In the formula that computes a t value, what does n?D represent?
A) Sum of the difference between groups
B) Sum of the means for Group 1
C) Sum of the means for Group 2
D) Sum of the differences squared
Q5) Explain the difference between a test of dependent and independent means.
Page 14
Q6) Given the following, what should you conclude? t<sub>(24)</sub> = 2.001 and t<sub>critical</sub> = 1.94
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Chapter 12: t(ea) for Two (Again): Tests Between the Means of Related Groups
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Q1) What Excel function requires that you enter the t value, degrees of freedom, and the number of tails?
A) TTEST
B) TEST2
C) TDIST
D) TDIST2
Q2) What is another name that statisticians call dependent tests?
A) Regression
B) Correlation
C) Repeated measures
D) Group differences
Q3) In the formula that computes a t value, what does n?D represent?
A) Sum of the difference between groups
B) Sum of the means for Group 1
C) Sum of the means for Group 2
D) Sum of the differences squared
Q4) What is another term that statisticians use when talking of dependent tests? Explain.
Q5) When using the Amazing Analysis ToolPak to compute t value for dependent samples, which test should you select?
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Chapter 13: Two Groups Too Many? Try Analysis of Variance
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Q1) If you wanted to examine whether the level of parental involvement differs based on students' grade in school (i.e., 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.), what is the dependent variable of interest?
A) Grade level
B) Students
C) Parents
D) Level of parent involvement
Q2) Which of the following would be an example of a design that examines the effects of gender and socioeconomic status (i.e., high, medium, and low) on a test of student achievement?
A) Simple ANOVA
B) One-way ANOVA
C) 2 × 3 ANOVA
D) 3 × 3 ANOVA
Q3) If the total sample size was 50 and three groups were examined, what is the between-groups degrees of freedom?
Q4) What are the three different ANOVA options within the Analysis Toolpak?
Q5) How are the F statistic and t statistic related?
Q6) What is the F value?
Q7) What is the formula for computing the F statistic?
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Chapter 14: Two Too Many Factors: Factorial Analysis of Variance
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Q1) ANOVA with replication is also known as?
A) Repeated measures
B) Between-group design
C) Mixed design
D) One-way ANOVA
Q2) What is a multivariate analysis of variance?
Q3) When analysis of data reveals a difference between levels of a factor, this is called the:
A) Interaction effect
B) Factor effect
C) Level effect
D) Main effect
Q4) Write the null and research hypotheses to test both the main effects and interaction between gender and treatment (treatment = two levels).
Q5) What is the difference between ANOVA: Two-Factor with Replication and ANOVA: Two-Factor without Replication?
Q6) Create a 3 × 2 factorial design ANOVA.
Q8) What does a factorial 3 × 2 design represent? Give an example. Page 18
Q7) When should factorial ANOVA be used in place of simple ANOVA?
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Chapter 15: Cousins or Just Good Friends? Testing
Relationships Using the Correlation Coefficient
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Questions
Q1) If you are examining the relationship between variables (not the difference between groups) and only two variables are being used, what is the appropriate test statistic?
Q2) What are the null and research hypotheses for testing a correlation coefficient?
Q3) How do you calculate the degrees of freedom when testing the correlation coefficient?
Q4) What are measures that occur at the same time known as?
A) Predictive measures
B) Longitudinal measures
C) Concurrent measures
D) Consecutive measures
Q5) If the correlation between two variables is .496, how much of the variance has not been accounted for?
A) 24.6%
B) 49.6%
C) 50.4%
D) 75.4%
Q6) What two test statistics can be used to test the significance of a correlation coefficient?
Q7) What does a correlation coefficient represent?
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Chapter 16: Predicting Wholl Win the Super Bowl: Using Linear
Regression
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Q1) What is another name for a regression line?
A) Line of best fit
B) Scatterplot line
C) Line graph
D) Line of the estimate
Q2) Which of the following determines the direction of the regression line?
A) Intercept
B) Predicted score
C) Criterion score
D) Slope
Q3) Explain what the regression line represents by naming three things that it allows us to examine.
Q4) Write the equation for linear regression. What do the symbols represent?
Q5) Using the regression formula with slope = .704 and intercept = .719, what would the predicted college GPA be for a student whose current high school GPA = 3.2?
A) 2.97
B) 2.69
C) 3.00
D) 3.20
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Chapter
Chi-Square and Some Other Nonparametric Tests
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Q1) What is a parametric test?
Q2) What is the formula for calculating a one-sample chi-square?
Q3) Why is "goodness of fit" a commonly used name for the one-sample chi-square test?
Q4) What do the symbols in the one-sample chi-square test represent?
Q5) Which of the following nonparametric tests is used to determine if scores from a sample came from a specified population?
A) Mann-Whitney
B) Fisher's exact
C) Kolmogorov-Smirnov
D) Spearman rank
Q6) Which of the following Excel functions is used for the chi-square test of independence?
A) CHIDIST
B) CHISQUARE
C) CHITEST
D) CHI
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Q7) How are the degrees of freedom associated with the one-sample chi-square calculated?
Q8) How is a nonparametric test different from a parametric test?
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Chapter 18: Some Other (Important) Statistical Procedures
You Should Know About
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Q1) Which of the following is a path analysis technique used to present results in a graphical representation of the relationship between all the different factors under consideration?
A) data mining
B) structural equation modeling
C) covariance
D) ANOVA
Q2) Of the following, which analysis can test relationships over time?
A) repeated measures
B) covariance
C) path analysis
D) ANOVA
Q3) Which of these is a way to look for patterns in sets of data, which was first used by the business community looking at (and for) financial trends?
A) data mining
B) repeated measures
C) path analysis
D) factor analysis
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