theory - Answers hypothetical explanation of a natural phenomenon
hypothesis - Answers testable prediction STATEMENT derived from theories
operational definition - Answers description of a property in concrete, measurable terms
Reliability - Answers tendency for an assessment or a study to give the same measurement over and
over again
Validity - Answers the degree to which a test or study measures what it set out to measure and not
some other confounding variable
Naturalistic Observation - Answers observe subjects in their natural environment instead of having them
come in for testing
Single-blind procedure - Answers when you do not tell the subject the true purpose of the observation
so they don't know how they should behave (reveal true purpose of study afterwards)
Population - Answers complete collection of people we wish to study and know something about
sample - Answers partial collection of people from a population
Representative sample - Answers the degree to which your sample of subjects have characteristics like
the subjects in the entire population
Random sampling - Answers a sample in which each member of the population has an equal chance of
being selected to represent the whole.
Case Study - Answers Researcher studies one person or one group. Pro: lots of detailed data Con: Not
enough of a sample to generalize to named population of interest
Double-blind observation - Answers study is one in which neither the participants nor the experimenters
know who is receiving a particular treatment. This procedure is utilized to prevent bias in research
results.
surveys, interviews, questionnaires - Answers data collection where you can get a lot of info in a short
amount of time relatively inexpensively.
Correlation - Answers the degree to which changes in one variable are synchronized with changes in
another variable
Correlation Coefficient - Answers -Ranges from -1 to +1; Larger absolute value shows stronger
relationship,
+ means positive correlation, - means negative correlation