Exam 6: Causation and Experimentation

When we ensure that the variation in the independent variable came before variation in the dependent variable, we have the criterion for proper

How do researchers use statistical control to determine factors most important when predicting a dependent variable like recidivism?

To determine whether community resource centers were more effective in reducing recidivism than traditional parole, Hyatt and Ostermann (2019) conducted a(n) ______ control group experiment.

When relationships among variables differ across geographic units such as counties, researchers say there is a(n) ______.

An idiographic explanation also may be termed an individualist or a historicist explanation.

A nomothetic causal explanation is one involving the belief that variation in an independent variable will be followed by ______, when all other things are equal.

Why are panel designs better than repeated cross-sectional design for testing causal hypotheses? What challenges do they have?

What is treatment misidentification? What are the three sources, as described in your text?

What is an event-based design? Describe who could be included in a study.

If researchers were evaluating the effectiveness of a mandatory arrest policy in decreasing incidents of intimate partner assault and an event such as the murder trial of O. J. Simpson occurred during the experiment, which of the following might also be said to have an effect on the subjects' outcome scores?

______ is a relationship between two variables that is not due to variation in a third variable

The difficulty of establishing nonspuriousness does not rule out using nonexperimental data to evaluate causal hypotheses.

When subjects experience a treatment that wasn't intended by the researcher is known as ______.

Selection bias is when subjects develop or change during the experiment as part of an ongoing process independent of the experimental treatment.

What is meant by "selective distribution of benefits"? Is it ethical? Why?

A discernable means of creating a connection between variables is a(n) ______.

When random assignment is not possible, a nonequivalent control group design is often used. In this type of quasi-experimental design, a comparison group is selected to be as comparable as possible to the treatment group. Describe the nonequivalent control group design and the two selection methods which can be used.

We talked about fixed-sample panel designs above when we highlighted quasi-experimental designs. What is a fixed-sample panel design? What is the process for conducting fixed-sample panel designs? Why are they better than other designs?

Explain the meaning of the expression, "correlation does not prove causation."

The simplest type of before-and-after design is the ______.