Psych Stats 1

• 4 Methods of Knowing

  authority

  rationalism

  intuition

  scientific method
• something is considered true because of tradition. it is currently in disfavor and does sometimes lead to error

  authority
• uses reasoning alone to arrive at knowledge.

  rationalism
• sudden insight, the clarifying idea that springs into consciousness all at one as a whole

  intuition
• 2 Definition of Scientific Method

  content

  process
• it is what we know, such as facts we learn in our courses.

  content
• is an activity that includes the systematic ways in which we go about gathering data.

  process
• uses both reasoning and intuition for establishing truth, its reliance on objective assessment is what differentiates this method from the other.

  scientific method
• is the complete set of individuals, objects, or scores that the investigator is interested in studying. it is the larger group of individuals from which the subjects run in the experiment have been taken.

  population
• is a subset of the population. smaller group of subjects

  sample
• is any property/characteristics of some event or person that may have different values at different times depending on the conditions. ex. height, weight, reaction time etc.

  variables
• is the variable that the investigator measures to determine the effect of the IV.

  dependent variable
• is the variable that is systematically manipulated.

  independent variable
• the measurement that are made on the subjects of an experiment or research.

  data
• is a number calculated on sample data that quantifies a characteristics of the sample. it is the average value of a sample set of scores.

  statistics
• is a number calculated on population data that quantifies a characteristics of the population. it is the average value of a population set of scores.

  parameter
• it describes the important characteristics/properties of the data using the measures of the central tendency like mean, median, mode.

  descriptive statistics
• describe sample central tendency and variability

  descriptive statistics
• allow us to draw conclusions about a parent population from a sample.

  inferential statistics
• is the statement that the scores came from the same population and the independent variable did not significantly affect the DV. not/none

  null hypothesis
• when the difference between the treatment groups exceeds the normal variability of scores on the DV. means that there is a treatment effect an an alpha level.

  statistically significant
• the statement that the scores came from different populations that the IV significantly affected the DV.

  alternative hypothesis
• predicts the “direction” of the difference between two groups on the DV.

  direct hypothesis
• is rejecting the null hypothesis when it is correct.

  type 1 error (a)
• is accepting the null hypothesis when it is false

  type 2 error (b)
• has a critical region at one tail of the distribution.

  one-tailed test
• has two critical regions found at opposite ends of the distribution.

  two-tailed test
• what is in a research report?


  introduction

  method

  results

  discussion

  abstract

  references
• it is written in scientific writing style - made to be informative and factual, not entertaining

  research report
• summary of the report as is usually between 150 - 250 words and includes concise synopsis of the experiment.

  abstract
• includes citations to background experiments from which you obtained ideas.

  literature review
• tells how you performed the experiment and describes your participants, procedure, and materials.

  method
• indicates the total number of score occur in each class intervals (CI)

  relative frequency
• indicates the number of scores that falls below the upper real limit of the selected CI

  cumulative frequency
• indicate the percentage of score that falls below the upper real limit of the selected CI.

  cumulative percentage