Exam 4: Observation

Researchers conducted a study on "inattentional blindness" in the central gathering plaza of a university campus to determine whether individuals would notice unusual events.For half of the observation periods,a clown rode a unicycle in the plaza; in the other half of the observation periods,two costumed confederates acted a scene from Hamlet.Trained research assistants asked individuals who had walked through the plaza if they had noticed anything unusual.What type of observational study does this study represent?

In order to avoid the problem of ______,it is sometimes necessary to use ______.

The problem of reactive measurement is _________ when indirect (unobtrusive)observation is used.

The cues and other information used by participants to guide their behavior in a psychological study are called

Which of the following would be an example of coding a narrative record during the process of data reduction in qualitative data analysis?

Two types of archival records are

Students conducted a naturalistic observation to study whether people arriving at the library alone would be more likely to hold the door open for a person coming in immediately after them than would people who arrived in pairs.The students made their observations looking through the window of a classroom building across from the library.They chose this position for observation to avoid the potential problem of

A researcher observes that the frequency of traffic accidents increases in warmer weather.This researcher need to consider whether there are more cars on the road when it is warmer.This "number of cars" variable must be considered to determine if the relationship between traffic accidents and temperature is

Clinical psychologists who make behavioral assessments of parent-child interactions are likely making use of an observation technique called

The remnants,fragments,and products of past behavior that provide unobtrusive measures of behavior are called

Which of the following is the most likely reason that a researcher studying aggressiveness of children would choose to use naturalistic observation?

Researchers studying factors that influence how much people eat gave college students potato chips to eat while watching a movie.The potato chips were stacked in tubes.In some of the tubes,researchers inserted colored chips at regular intervals (e.g.,every 7^th chip).Other tubes contained no colored chips.In this study,the use of potato chip stacks with colored chips represents

Researchers planned a long-term study of children's relationships with their parent using observations in the homes of the families.Before beginning to collect data,the observers visited each home a few times and set up their recording equipment and recorded behavior just as they would do in the data collection phase of their study.These early visits to the home were done so that families would get used to the presence of observers.Which of the following techniques did these researchers use?

A researcher studying interpersonal communication measured the time that couples made eye contact during a conversation.Which descriptive statistics would most commonly be used describe the researcher's duration measurements?

A researcher examines the number of "family-size" products on supermarket shelves in America and France,and concludes that Americans prefer larger-sized portions than do the French.A second researcher concludes that the number of members in a typical family is larger in American than in France.These different interpretations indicate that

Two student researchers wish to determine the degree of interobserver reliability they achieved in their study.They observed individual students who were approaching another person on a campus path.The two observers both independently recorded whether or not each observed student greeted the other person.Which of the following measures should the student researchers use to assess interobserver reliability?

When a more or less faithful reproduction of behavior as it originally occurred is recorded in either written form or through the use of audio or video recording,the resulting description of behavior in an observation study is called a

Which of the following dependent variables is most likely to represent a ratio scale of measurement?

When many observations of the same children in a classroom are made it is possible to determine the frequency of certain behaviors,such as how many times children speak in class.Which scale of measurement do these frequency data represent?

Describe three problems and limitations that can occur when archival records are used in research,and how these problems affect researchers' conclusions about evidence from archival records.