Ashworth Semester Exam PS370 Research Methods in Psychology

PS370 : Research Methods in Psychology
Question 1
Which of the following is an example of inductive thinking?
Reasoning that a man will be able to hit a golf ball further than a woman because men generally have greater muscle development than women
Assuming that the sun will rise tomorrow morning because we know that the earth will continue to rotate and the sun will not burn out for billions of years
Assuming that there is something that we name intelligence because we notice that problem solving measures show differences between people that seem to be consistent over time
None of the above

Question 2
A researcher hypothesizes that criticism and aggression increase among coworkers when frustration increases. Workers are assigned to one of three groups (no frustration, moderate frustration, high frustration). For each group, verbal criticism and aggression are measured. In this example the independent variable is:
frustration level.
verbal criticism and aggression.
number of people in a group.
amount of work completed.

Question 3
The American Psychological Association's (APA) Ethical Guidelines for Research with Human Participants:
guarantees a research participant payment for participation.
guarantees a research participant the freedom to withdraw at any time from participation.
guarantees that there will be no deception or concealment.
expressly forbids research on children or persons with impairments.

Question 4
Which of the following is an accurate statement?
The variance is a better measure of variability than the range.
The range is a better measure of variability than the variance.
The range is a better measure of central tendency than the mode.
The variance is a better measure of central tendency than the range.

Question 5
A researcher wants to measure the relationship between age and test taking enjoyment (high, extremely high, insanely high, etc.). The most appropriate statistic would be the:
chi square.
sign test.
Pearson product-moment correlation.
Spearman rank-order correlation.

Question 6
Independent variables in differential research are __________ independent variables.
experimental
nonmanipulated
manipulated
randomly-assigned

Question 7
Suppose a psychoanalyst studies enuretic children seen in her private practice. She observed that each child suffers from Oedipal conflicts and thus concluded that all enuretic children suffer from such conflicts. This conclusion illustrates a problem with what type of validity?
Absolute
Statistical
Internal
External

Question 8
When would you conclude there is a causal effect in an experiment?
When the systematic variance is high and error variance is low
When both systematic and error variance are low
When the error variance is greater than the systematic variance
When the error variance has a positive effect on the mean of the experimental group

Question 9
Assume we are carrying out a study involving children between the ages of 6 months and 2-1/2 years. We are looking at the effects of sudden noise on behavioral response. The most important variable to match the groups on is:
birth order.
eye color.
age.
weight.

Question 10
Which of the following is NOT an example of a typical dependent measure in program evaluation?
A questionnaire given to people served by the program, as well as people in the community, asking about their satisfaction with the program
A measure of politician's commitment to continued funding of the program
A measure of actual change in the community (e.g., rate of unemployment for a community with a job training program)
A measure of change in the individual (e.g., a measure of malnutrition for people who receive food stamps)