EAB 4794 Exam 1 2021 (Chapter 1-4) Review- Florida International University

EAB 4794 Exam 1 2021 (Chapter 1-4) Review- Florida International University-A systematic approach for seeking & organizing knowledge about the natural world • Purpose: o To achieve a thorough understanding of the phenomena under study o Seeks to discover the real truths (not those held by certain groups, organizations, etc.) Three different types of investigations that provide different levels of understanding: Description • Collection of facts about observed events that can be quantified, classified, & examined for possible relations with other known facts • Often suggests hypotheses or questions for additional research • Example: Pineapple ice cream is yellow and coconut ice cream is white • Example: Priscilla ate pineapple ice cream twice this week. She never ate coconut ice cream Prediction • Relative probability that when one event occurs, another event will or will not occur • Based on repeated observation revealing relationships between various events • Demonstrates correlation between events • No causal relationships can be interpreted • Enables preparation • Examples: As the temperature increases, the sale of ice cream increase. Control • Highest level of scientific understanding • Functional relations can be derived o Specific change in one event (dependent variable) o Can reliably be produced by specific manipulations of another event (independent variable) o And the change in the dependent variable was unlikely to be the result of other extraneous factors (confounding variables) • Events can only really be “co-related” • Nearly impossible to factor out all other possible “causes” • Example: Priscilla never participated in class. Her teacher, Ms. Fernandez, implemented a token economy, in which students earned point for participating. Priscilla began to participate frequently. When Ms. Fernandez ran out of points, Priscilla stopped participating. Ms. Fernandez stocked up on points and Priscilla began participating once again. Scientific attitudes that guide the work of all scientists include: Determinism • Assumption upon which science is predicted • Presumption that the universe is a lawful and orderly place in which all phenomena occur as the result of other events • Events do not just occur at will • Events are related in systematic ways Empiricism • Practice of objective observation of phenomena of interest • What all scientific knowledge is built upon Experimentation • Basic strategy in most sciences • Experiment: o Controlled comparison of some measure of the phenomenon of interest (dependent variable) under two of more different conditions in which only one factor at a time (independent variable) differs from one condition to another. Replication • The repetition of experiments to determine the reliability and usefulness of findings • Includes the repetition of independent variable conditions within experiments • Method for which mistakes are discovered Parsimony • Requires that all simple, logical, explanations for the phenomenon under investigation be ruled out, experimentally or conceptually, before more complex or abstract explanations are considered Philosophic Doubt