Deck 1: A Gentle Introduction

Question 1

Which of the following orders is the correct one for the level of scientific scrutiny of a research study (from highest to lowest scrutiny)?

A)journal article, convention paper, book
B)book, convention paper, journal article
C)convention paper, book, journal article
D)newspaper, convention paper, book
E)none has the correct order

Answer 1

journal article, convention paper, book

Question 2

Which of the following words typically has no place in a statistical report?

A)significant
B)insignificant
C)nonsignificant

Answer 2

insignificant

Question 3

When the experimenter evaluates the outcome of a study without knowing which participants were in the experimental and control groups and the participants are also unaware, then the experiment is said to be

A)retrospective
B)archival
C)retroblind
D)archivally blind
E)double blind

Answer 3

double blind

Question 4

An experimenter defines "consumer assertion" as the total number of products that a consumer has returned for his or her money back in a 1-year period.This definition in statistics is

A)a confounding variable
B)a definitional periodicity
C)an operational definition
D)a continuous but discrete definition
E)measurement "error"

Question 5

A study linked a high blood pressure medicine to an increased risk of heart attacks.How many of the 70 published defenders of the medicine had financial ties to the manufacturer of the drug?

A)24
B)47
C)51
D)67
E)all of them

Question 6

In a study of autistic children being taught facilitated communication, what percentage of the autistic kids could answer the questions correctly without any help from the facilitators after their training?

A)0%
B)25%
C)55%
D)92.6%

Question 7

Who wrote that "not [ever] being wrong" was even worse than being wrong in science?

A)Nightingale
B)Pauli
C)Prusiner
D)Abelson

Question 8

Which of the following is NOT a role of the statistician according to Abelson?

A)curious detective
B)honest attorney
C)good storyteller
D)moral advocate

Question 9

Which of the following results in an abuse of statistical power?

A)too large a sample
B)too small a sample
C)a nonrandom sample
D)a correlative experimental design
E)all of the above

Question 10

Which of the following is NOT a characteristic of a good theory?

A)provable
B)testable hypotheses
C)provocative
D)grandness
E)all of the above

Question 11

Which of the following was NOT presented as one of the eight questions of any study or survey?

A)Who was surveyed?
B)Were the participants paid?
C)How many people participated?
D)Did the survey have too many questions or items?
E)Was causation assumed from a correlational study?

Question 12

Some patients in a control group will get well because of their belief that they are receiving the real treatment.This phenomenon is known as the

A)experimenter effect
B)placebo effect
C)Hawthorne effect
D)belief effect
E)all of the above

Question 13

True or false: Theories are often proven or disproven in science.
a.true
b.false

Question 14

A series of studies is used to demonstrate the usefulness of a theory.This process is called

A)replication
B)duplication
C)inferential testing
D)demonstrativeness

Question 15

Historically, which is the oldest form of statistics?

A)descriptive
B)inferential
C)parametric
D)nonparametric

Question 16

The word placebo comes from Latin and means

A)untrue
B)fake belief
C)I shall believe
D)placid

Question 17

After a normative study of blood pressure in people older than age 50, the researchers realized that they did not record the people's ages.The lack of knowledge about their ages is considered a potential

A)confounding variable
B)dependent variable
C)independent variable
D)response variable
E)diagnostic variable

Question 18

Anxiety was measured in a group of anxious elderly patients who were divided into two groups.One group received a new anti-anxiety drug and the other a placebo.The operational definition of the dependent variable is

A)anxiety
B)not specified
C)anxious elderly patients
D)all of the above
E)none of the above

Question 19

If we randomly choose names from the phone book, call them, and determine whether they are registered voters, does this process result in a random sample of voters?

Question 20

Which of the following is the most important and powerful form of scientific control in an experiment?

A)the design of the experiment
B)the statistical analyses
C)a correlational design
D)a large sample

Question 21

Which of the following scales requires a rational zero point?

A)ordinal
B)nominal
C)ratio
D)rational
E)interdenominational

Question 22

For the set of numbers 4, 5, 6, 9, the value of ( $\Sigma$ x)² would be equal to

A)24
B)158
C)576

Question 23

For the set of numbers 2, 3, 5, the value of $\Sigma$ x² would be equal to

A)38
B)100
C)10

Question 24

For the set of numbers 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, the value of
would be equal to

A)-94
B)30
C)94
D)125

Question 25

The capital Greek letter $\Sigma$ indicates that the reader should _______ a set of numbers.

A)add
B)subtract
C)multiply
D)divide
E)calculate