Exam 2: Psychologys Scientific Method

You want to determine the relationship between caffeine intake and performance on a mid-quarter exam. As students sit down to take the exam, you ask them to write the number of cups of tea, soda, or coffee they ingested two hours prior to the exam. You also obtain their exam scores. You calculate the correlation coefficient between the two variables to be +0.82. What can you conclude?

Allie has developed a theory concerning test grades. She believes that there is a relationship between her frequency of study and the resulting grade. In order to test her theory, she has to State a(n)

A participant must give informed consent prior to taking part in an experiment.

Meta-analysis refers to the replication of research in order to determine whether a finding is reliable.

The scientific method requires

Joaquin has been assigned a primary research project in his psychology class. He is to observe student behavior during a learning task and attempt to form a/an ________. In order to do this, he must be able to articulate a broad idea that describes principles and events, and how they may be related.

What does the positive or negative sign of a correlation coefficient indicate?

Which of the following correlation coefficients is indicative of the strongest relationship between two variables?

It has been proposed that students have difficultly returning to their academic schedule after a holiday or break. Specifically, it has been predicted that there will be more student absences on the Monday following spring break than on the Friday prior to spring break. The first statement describes the ________, while the second is the ________.

In a formal experiment, which group is the experimental group?

Given the following data set, calculate the mean and discuss why the mean is, or is not, the best measure of central tendency. 12, 16, 11, 2, 44, 15

A history class has agreed to be the subjects of a research study. Half of the class has been asked to study for the next test while listening to classical music. The remaining students will study in a silent environment. The test scores of the two groups will be compared. Which of the following is the dependent variable?

Professor Jordan has suggested to his students that a correlation exists between the number of hours spent in serious study and one's grade on the final exam. He would like his students to improve their test scores by increasing study time. The professor is describing a

Dr. Kingston is examining how student's reading speed is affected by being tutored either by a teacher's assistant or a computer-based reading program. In this experiment, what is the Dependent variable?

Blind experiments are conducted in an effort to rule out experimenter bias.

James Pennebaker's research demonstrated that

One criticism leveled towards Skinner was that a majority of his work was conducted in laboratories with animals. Critics were most concerned with

"This cannot be the real opinion of the entire student body! She didn't ask me to fill out her survey!" Haley complained. Her psychology teacher explained that

The careful observation of behavior in laboratory settings is called naturalistic observation.

If Professor Milton wants to examine the relationship between brain damage and intelligence levels, she will have to conduct a ________ study.