Course Syllabus

Course Description: This course aims to provide an introduction to the different research methods to undertake empirical research in psychology and other disciplines of the behavioral science. Topics include identifying and conceptualizing potential topics into problem statements, articulating research questions and hypotheses, conducting literature reviews, selecting and designing specific research methods and techniques appropriate for answering key research questions, and develop a viable research proposal.



Course Objectives:

1. Encourage students to think critically about the fundamental concepts of the research process and how psychological research conducted

2. Develope information literacy and technology skills to retrieve and synthesize information and critically evaluate published psychological research

3. Provide understanding of the different research designs and data gathering techniques to bring evidence and find answers to the problem

4. Develop students ability on how to prepare a research proposal based and supported by existing research



Course Learning Outcomes:
At the end of this course, students should be able to:

1. Demonstrate an understanding of the foundations of empirical research in behavioural science.

2. Develop an ability to think critically about research and critically evaluate empirical research reports.

3. Understand and critically evaluate various research methodologies used by psychologist.

4. Design a research proposal with an appropriate research methods and techniques.

5. Develop skills in research proposal writing



Course Stucture

Class activities include interactive lecture presentations and tutorial sessions with online activities via recommended readings that underscore the research process in behavioral sciences. Evaluation of students' performance include assessment methodologies such as annotated list of bibliographies relevant to their topics and reviews of weekly acitivities and online learning portfolio of each group.

Friday, January 21, 2011

Week 14

Week 14: Quasi-Experimental Designs and Program Evaluation


MULTIPLE-CHOICE TEST

1.   One threat to the internal validity of research that affects both true experiments and quasi-experiments is:
      A.  experimenter expectancy effects.
      B.  selection threats.
      C.  additive effects with selection.
      D.  All of these

2.   When people’s performance changes because they are enthusiastic or energized by an intervention, the results of a study are likely affected by:
      A.  contamination.
      B.  novelty effects.
      C.  treatment enthusiasm.
      D.  diffusion of treatment.

3.   When events that occur during the course of a study have a different effect on one group of participants than on another, the possible threat to internal validity is:
      A.  history.
      B.  selection.
      C.  additive effects of selection and history.
      D.  differential treatment effects.

4.   Students on two college campuses serve as treatment and control groups in a study investigating the effectiveness of an AIDS awareness campaign. A well-known student on one of the campuses dies of AIDS in the course of the study; students on the other campus did not learn of the student’s death. The reaction of other students to the student’s death on their campus could represent a potential threat to the internal validity of the study called:
      A.  history.
      B.  selection.
      C.  additive effects of selection and maturation.
      D.  additive effects of selection and history.

5.   A threat to internal validity that occurs when information about the experiment is communicated between the different groups of participants is known as:
      A.  the cross-communication threat.
      B.  contamination
      C.  novelty effects.
      D.  the Hawthorne effect.

6.   Contamination that results from communication of information between groups of participants in an experiment can lead to all of the following except:
      A.  rivalry among participants receiving different treatments.
      B.  resentment on the part of participants receiving less desirable treatments.
      C.  general diffusion of treatments across the groups.
      D.  greater compliance with the instructions within each group.

7.   An intervention in an office setting leads employees to be pleased that the management is interested in their welfare. If the employees’ performance improves in this situation, the researcher should be concerned about potential:
      A.  contamination effects.
      B.  lack of discontinuity in the time-series.
      C.  the Hawthorne effect.
      D.  selection threats to internal validity.

8.   The most critical defining characteristic of a true experiment is often seen to be a high degree of control over the:
      A.  arrangement of experimental conditions.
      B.  random assignment of participants to experimental conditions.
      C.  choice of dependent variables.
      D.  systematic manipulation of independent variables.

9.   One of the main ways that true experiments differ from quasi-experiments is that true experiments use:
      A.  correlational methods.
      B.  random selection from the population.
      C.  random assignment to conditions.
      D.  All of these

10. The difference between a true experiment conducted in a natural setting and a quasi-experiment conducted in a natural setting is that the:
      A.  quasi-experiment will have greater internal validity.
      B.  quasi-experiment will have greater external validity.
      C.  quasi-experiment will lack a comparison condition.
      D.  None of these

11. When it comes to control over the conditions in the experiment or over assignment of participants to groups in the experiment, a researcher in a natural setting is likely to have:
      A.  more control than a researcher in a laboratory setting.
      B.  the same amount of control as a researcher in a laboratory setting.
      C.  less control than a researcher in a laboratory setting.
      D.  more control over the conditions in the experiment but less control over assignment of participants.

12. The external validity of research done in natural settings may be emphasized more if the research represents:
      A.  social experimentation as the basis for large-scale changes.
      B.  an extension of a specific laboratory finding.
      C.  an experiment done to address a specific question raised by a specific company.
      D.  a theoretically motivated social psychology experiment.

13. Research done in natural settings as compared to research done in laboratory settings is more likely to emphasize:
      A.  abstract goals.
      B.  methodological goals.
      C.  ethical goals.
      D.  practical goals.

14. In the context of conducting experiments in natural settings, random assignment of participants to conditions is:
      A.  the fairest procedure if the effectiveness of the treatment is not known.
      B.  usually perceived by possible participants as the fairest procedure.
      C.  the fairest procedure if the effectiveness of the treatment is known.
      D.  usually perceived by those in positions of authority as the fairest procedure.

15. A physician wants to test the effectiveness of a new allergy medication. The physician consults a researcher who regularly conducts clinical trials. The physician tells the researcher that she has a backlog of 100 patients she is treating effectively with the prevailing medication but who could potentially benefit even more from the new medication. The researcher recommends that the physician do a true experiment because of the availability of a(n):
      A.  excess demand control.
      B.  waiting list control.
      C.  quasi-treatment control.
      D.  convenience control.

16. In clinical trials involving tests of new medical treatments it may be extremely difficult to get patients to agree to be randomly assigned to either the treatment or the control group. In these situations researchers can use:
      A.  matched groups designs.
      B.  natural groups designs.
      C.  yoked control designs.
      D.  quasi-experimental designs.

17. A high school teacher was conducting a test of a new approach to teaching math. Students were given a pretest when their math class began and a posttest at the end of the semester. The students’ math performance increased. The teacher learned near the end of the semester, however, that in their science classes the students were using new computer software that included much of the math the teacher was covering in his course. Which of the following threats to internal validity does the new computer software represent?
      A.  selection
      B.  regression
      C.  history
      D.  testing

18. In a study of the effectiveness of a treatment for depression, a psychologist assesses patients’ symptoms of depression using a reliable questionnaire both before and for several months after treatment. During the same time period, the psychologist also assesses the symptoms of individuals who are randomly assigned to a waiting list control. The results indicate that individuals in both groups experienced a decrease in their symptoms over the 8-month time period of the study. One threat to internal validity the researcher should consider is:
      A.  maturation.
      B.  regression.
      C.  selection.
      D.  All of these

19. When individuals’ performance on a posttest differs from their initial testing not because of a treatment but because of familiarity with the measure, a __________ threat to internal validity is likely.
      A.  regression
      B.  testing
      C.  instrumentation
      D.  contamination

20. A researcher trains observers to complete checklists while observing children’s behavior on the schoolyard during recess. Over the course of the study, observers become more reliable in their observations. Any effect of a treatment in this study might be confounded with an ____________ threat to internal validity.
      A.  observation
      B.  expectancy effect
      C.  instrumentation
      D.  additive

21. Participants for a treatment group are chosen because they score very low on a pretest measure of performance. When their performance improves on the posttest, the researcher:
      A.  can be confident that the treatment was effective.
      B.  should consider the possibility that statistical regression influenced posttest scores.
      C.  can rule out testing and instrumentation threats to internal validity.
      D.  must conclude that additive effects with selection are responsible for the outcome.

22. The main problem associated with subject attrition during the course of a study is that:
      A.  groups initially created to be equivalent may no longer be equivalent.
      B.  the group with the most participants remaining at the end of a study will likely have higher posttest scores.
      C.  the researcher can no longer use statistical analysis to understand the results.
      D.  regression to the mean on the dependent variable measure is likely.

23. When, from the outset of a study, differences exist between the kinds of individuals in one group of an experiment and those in another, there is a potential threat to internal validity called:
      A.  contamination.
      B.  maturation.
      C.  additive effect of selection and history.
      D.  selection.

24. Random assignment to conditions is used in true experiments to control which of the following threats to internal validity?
      A.  selection
      B.  testing
      C.  history
      D.  subject attrition

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