Chapter 3 – Three Claims, Four Validities

In most experiments, tradeoffs are made between validities because it is not possible to achieve all four at once. What is the most common tradeoff?

the amount of time to perform the decision task

Which of the following claims is an association claim?

Reading the news on the Internet, Johan comes across the headline, "When Stress is Increased, Men Rush Ahead, Women More Cautious." (This headline is based on a study conducted by Lighthall et al., 2011.) In this study, men and women were asked to perform a decision task as many times as possible in a set period, in either a stressed or unstressed condition. In the unstressed condition, men and women performed similarly. However, in the stressed condition, the number of decision tasks performed by men increased while the number performed by women decreased. In this study, the number of decision tasks performed is best described as which of the following?

or an association claim, you should interrogate all of the following validities EXCEPT __________.

Which of the following is an example of a causal claim?

Marvin reads a journalistic report of a research study and asks, "How strong was the effect?" Which validity is Marvin asking about?

Professor Lee is curious if there is any pattern to who earns extra credit in her course. She examines this question by graphing a scatterplot of her students' exam grades and the number of extra credit points earned. She finds that the students with the lowest exam grades tend to have the most extra credit points. What type of association is this?

Which of the following is NOT an operational definition of stress?

It has been reported that half of Americans show road rage. For this claim to have strong external validity, which of the following would have been the best sample for the researcher to have used?

Professor Nakum designs a memory experiment to test the effect of word familiarity on memory. Three lists of words are created: common words, uncommon words, and made-up words. Participants study one of the lists of 30 words for 5 minutes, do math problems for 5 minutes, then write all the words they recall from the list. Their score is the number of words correctly recalled. Which of the following is the independent variable in this study?

Phuong is conducting an experiment on proofreading. All participants are asked to read a passage with several typos and correct the errors. However, one group proofreads by reading silently, a second group proofreads by reading aloud, and a third group proofreads by reading the passage silently backward. The researcher calculates the average number of errors found in each group and finds that both the reading silently and reading aloud groups found more errors than the reading silently backward group. What are the variables in this study?

There is a negative association between exercise and obesity. Which of the following would a researcher need to demonstrate in order to make the claim that a lack of exercise causes obesity?

Which of the following criteria is NOT required for a causal claim?

Professor Nakum designs a memory experiment to test the effect of word familiarity on memory. Three lists of words are created: common words, uncommon words, and made-up words. Participants study one of the lists of 30 words for 5 minutes, do math problems for 5 minutes, then write all the words they recall from the list. Their score is the number of words correctly recalled. How were the words for each list selected?

Jenny reads the headline, "Tea Party Supporters Have Slipped To 20 Percent." She asks, "What is the margin of error of the estimate?" What validity is she interrogating?

Which of the following questions addresses construct validity?

What kind of a claim is the following headline making? "You Gotta Have Friends? Most Have Just Two True Pals."

Professor Nakum designs a memory experiment to test the effect of word familiarity on memory. Three lists of words are created: common words, uncommon words, and made-up words. Participants are randomly assigned to study one of the lists of 30 words for 5 minutes, do math problems for 5 minutes, then write all the words they recall from the list. Their score is the number of words correctly recalled. The use of random assignment of participants increases which of the following?

professor Nakum designs a memory experiment to test the effect of word familiarity on memory. Three lists of words are created: common words, uncommon words, and made-up words. Participants study one of the lists of 30 words for 5 minutes, do math problems for 5 minutes, then write all the words they recall from the list. Their score is the number of words correctly recalled. Which of the following is the dependent variable in this study?

Heather reads an article entitled, "Waist Circumference Associated with Life Expectancy." She wants to use the correlation reported in the article to predict her own life expectancy based on her waist circumference. What kind of correlation would be best for her to make this prediction?

A recent headline read, "School Lunches Make Kids Fat." The article cited a study comparing children at two schools. The school with the lower obesity rate had few children who ate school lunches (lunch provided by the school). The other school had a greater percentage of obese children and most of these children ate school lunches. No mention was made that many of the children who eat school lunches are low-income children who receive free lunches. Poverty is a major factor in obesity. Which validity is threatened by the potential confound, poverty?

What kind of a claim is the following headline making? "Former NFLers at Higher Risk for Brain, Mood Problems."

What is the name for the measured variable in an experiment?

Reading the news on the Internet, Johan comes across the headline, "When Stress is Increased, Men Rush Ahead, Women More Cautious." (This headline is based on a study conducted by Lighthall et al., 2011.) In this study, men and women were asked to perform a decision task as many times as possible in a set period, in either a stressed or unstressed condition. In the unstressed condition, men and women performed similarly. However, in the stressed condition, the number of decision tasks performed by men increased while the number performed by women decreased. Which of the following is a variable in this study?

Jenny reads the headline, "Tea Party Supporters Have Slipped To 20 Percent." She asks, "What is the margin of error of the estimate?" What validity is she interrogating?

Which of the following claims is an association claim?