Question 1

What is a variable?&#10;A) A measure that only exists within correlational designs&#10;B) An experimental manipulation&#10;C) A particular group of participants&#10;D) Something that can be measured or manipulated

Accepted Answer

A variable is a clearly defined thing that you can either measure or manipulate.

Question 2

What does it mean to operationalise a variable?&#10;A) To disregard that variable from the study&#10;B) To define what the variable is and how it will be measured&#10;C) To present multiple ways of interpreting a variable&#10;D) To specify how a variable will be analysed

Accepted Answer

Operationalising a variable involves defining what the variable is and how it will be measured.

Question 3

What type of data am I collecting if I present participants with ten different types of pet and I ask them to place them in order of most desired as a pet through to least desired as a pet.&#10;A) Ordinal&#10;B) Nominal&#10;C) Ratio&#10;D) Interval

Accepted Answer

The data being collected is ordinal data because the participants are being asked to rank the different types of pet in a specific order from most desired as a pet to least desired as a pet. The data has a clear order and ranking, but the differences between each ranking are not necessarily equal or measurable.

Question 4

What is a confounding variable?&#10;A) A variable that is impossible to define&#10;B) A variable that you manipulate&#10;C) A variable that cannot be measured&#10;D) A variable that may explain findings within your study, but that you are not necessarily interested in.

Accepted Answer

A confounding variable may explain findings within your study, but it is not a variable that you are directly interested in.

Question 5

In an experimental design, the independent variable is...&#10;A) The outcome that is measured&#10;B) The variable that is manipulated&#10;C) Correlated with another variable&#10;D) A measure of frequency

Accepted Answer

The independent variable is the variable that is deliberately manipulated or changed by the researcher to observe its effect on the dependent variable.

Question 6

If a research wanted to compare intelligence scores between people who have been convicted of crimes and people who have never been convicted of a crime, this would be an example of&#8230;&#10;A) An experimental design&#10;B) A correlational design&#10;C) A quasi experimental design&#10;D) A categorical design

Accepted Answer

Whether someone has been convicted or a crime or not is not something that a researcher can manipulation, and therefore it would be a quasi experimental design where two groups are compared and participants cannot be randomly allocated to conditions.

Question 7

When designing correlational studies, which of the following is true?&#10;A) Both variables must be categorical&#10;B) One variable should be continuous and one variable should be categorical&#10;C) Only one variable should be measured&#10;D) Both variables must be continuous scores

Accepted Answer

A correlational study should measure two continuous variables, and the relationship between these can then be analysed.

Question 8

Which type of validity would be shown if your measure were correlated with similar measures?&#10;A) Internal validity&#10;B) Divergent (construct) validity&#10;C) Convergent (construct) validity&#10;D) External validity

Accepted Answer

Convergent (construct) validity is shown when a measure is correlated with similar measures, indicating that it is measuring the intended construct.

Question 9

Inter-rater reliability would not be relevant with which of the following measures?&#10;A) Reaction times&#10;B) Observational research&#10;C) Focus groups&#10;D) Interviews

Accepted Answer

Inter-rater reliability is concerned with the consistency between different raters and their judgments or observations. In the case of reaction times, the outcome is a numerical measure that does not depend on subjective interpretation or judgment, so there is no need for multiple raters to assess it. Therefore, inter-rater reliability is not relevant in this case.

Question 10

A Cronbach's alpha value of .81 would indicated what level of internal consistency?&#10;A) Good&#10;B) Acceptable&#10;C) Questionable&#10;D) Poor

Accepted Answer

A Cronbach's alpha value of .81 indicates good internal consistency. Typically, alpha values of .70 or higher are considered acceptable, with values above .80 indicating good internal consistency.

Deck 2: How to Design a Psychological Study: the Basics of Methodology