psych 9a // chapter 2

• Intuition is the ability to understand or know something instinctively, without the need for conscious reasoning.
• Experience involves the knowledge, skills, and expertise that an individual accumulates over time through occurrences in their everyday life.
• The scientific method is the process of basing one’s confidence in an idea on systematic, direct observations of the world, usually by setting up research studies to test ideas.
• The theory-data cycle is the process of the scientific method, in which scientists collect data that can either confirm or disconfirm a theory.
• A theory is a proposition explaining how and why people think, act, and feel.
• A hypothesis is a specific prediction stating what will happen in a study if the theory is correct.
• Data refers to a set of empirical observations that scientists have gathered.
• Replication refers to when a study is conducted more than once on a new sample of participants, and obtains the same basic results.
• A journal is a periodical containing peer-reviewed articles on a specific academic discipline, written for a scholarly audience.
• A variable is something of interest that varies from person to person or from situation to situation.
• A measured variable is a variable whose values are simply recorded; also known as a dependent variable.
• A manipulated variable is a variable whose values the researcher controls, usually by assigning different participants to different levels of that variable; also known as an independent variable.
• An operational definition is a specific way of measuring or manipulating an abstract value in a particular study.
• Descriptive research refers to a type of study in which researchers measure one variable at a time.
• Survey research is a descriptive research method that involves collecting data from people through administration of structured questionnaires or interviews.
• The sample is the group who participated in research, and who belong to the larger group (the population of interest) that a researcher is interested in understanding.
• The population of interest is the full set of cases a researcher is interested in.
• Random sampling is a way of choosing a sample of participants for a study in which participants are selected without bias.
• Observational research is a descriptive research method in which psychologists measure a variable of interest by observing and recording what people are doing.
• Naturalistic observation is an observational research method in which psychologists observe the behavior of animals and people in their normal, everyday worlds and environments.
• A case study is an observational research method in which researchers study one or two individuals in-depth, often those who have a unique condition.
• Correlational research is a type of study that measures two (or more) variables in the same sample of people, and then observes the relationship between them.
• A scatterplot is a figure used to represent a correlation, in which each dot usually represents a study participant, the x-axis represents one variable, and the y–axis represents the other variable.
• For an observed relationship between two variables, the third-variable problem refers to an additional variable that is associated with both of them, making the additional variable an alternative explanation for the observed relationship.
• Experimental research is a study in which one variable is manipulated, and the other is measured.
• The independent variable is the manipulated variable in an experiment.
• The dependent variable is the measured variable in an experiment.
• Random assignment is a procedure used in experimental research in which a random method is used to decide which participants will receive each level of the independent variable.
• In an experiment, an experimental group is a group or condition in which some proposed cause is present.
• In an experiment, a control group is a group or condition in which some proposed cause is not present.
• In an experiment, a placebo condition is a group or condition in which people expect to receive a treatment but are exposed only to an inert version.
• A double-blind procedure is a design used in experimental research in which neither the participants nor the experimenters are aware of which participants belong to the experimental group and which belong to the control group.
• Validity refers to the appropriateness or accuracy of a conclusion or decision.
• Construct validity is one type of validity, which involves the assessment of how accurately the operationalizations used in a study capture the variables of interest.
• Reliability refers to the degree to which a measure yields consistent results each time it is administered.
• Test-retest reliability is one type of reliability, which involves the consistency of scores obtained from the same measure administered to the same group of individuals on two or more occasions.
• Inter-rater reliability is one type of reliability, which involves the consistency of ratings or judgments made by different observers or raters who independently evaluate the same behavior, event, or phenomenon.
• External validity is one type of validity, which involves the degree to which it is reasonable to generalize from a study’s sample to its population of interest.
• Internal validity is one type of validity, which involves the ability to rule out alternative explanations for a relationship between two variables.
• A confound is an alternative explanation for an observed relationship between two variables.