Exam 2 Study Guide and Exam Instructions
PSYC 2125 – Intro Research Methods at ore bolded within the study guide are topics that students have found particularly challenging previously,
a ter 3: 3 claims 4 validities What is a variable?
■ What is the difference between a variable and a constant? Wmahnaitpiuslraetqeduivreadriatoblbee? a variable?
■ What is the difference between a measured variable and a . Which one does a researcher have control over? Which one does the research observe/record?
■ What is the difference between a conceptual variable and an operational variable?
• Be able to provide an operational definition when given a conceptual variable (e.g., being able to provide an operational definition for love) What are the 3 types of claims?
■ What is the difference between each type of claim? What is each type of claim describing/claiming?
■ How many variable(s) does each claim have? Are the variable (s) measured or manipulated?
■ What type of verbs are associational vs causal?
■ If given a claim (e.g., a headline) be able to indicate the type of claim, what the variables are, and what kind of study would be required to support the claim
• E.g. “Being tall could make you richer”-> What is the claim? The variables? Study required to establish claim?
■ Association
• What is an association? How are associations measured? What does it mean for two variables to be associated?
• What is the difference between a positive, negative, and zero correlation? (i.e.,.what does it indicate about how the variables are related).
♦ What pattern on a scatterplot is associated with each? (E.g., positive association is points cluster to form an upward line from left to right).
• What does it mean to use a variable for predictioil?
■ Causal claims
• What type of study is required to establish a causal claim?
• What are the 3 conditions that must be met to be able to make a causal claim (i.e., X caused Y)? What are the 4 big validities used to evaluate a research? What are each of them focused on?
■ What is internal validity and external validity? • Which is focused on causation? Which is focused on generalizability?
■ What is statistical significance and Type I and Type II error? Which type of validity are they related to?
• What does it mean to say a result is statistically significant? Experiment vs Descriptive
■ What is the difference between experimental and descriptive research?
• What makes a study an experiment that does not occur in descriptive research?
• Be able to tell from a research question or topic whether it would be possible to study it using an experiment
♦ E.g., The effect of childhood trauma on trust in romantic relationships as an adult Experiment—IV/DV
• What is an independent variable? Dependent variable?
♦ Which is the cause? Which is the effect?
♦ Be able to identify the IV (and its levels) and the DV if given a research description
• What is random assignment?
• What is a confounding variable? How does it make it difficult to establish causation?
♦ Be able to indicate what the confounding variable is in a research description
