UBC PSYC 102 MIDTERM #1 EXAM QUESTIONS AND
ANSWERS WITH COMPLETE SOLUTIONS GRADED A++
LATEST UPDATE
Three sources of knowledge
- Intuition (you just know it)
- Observation (you have experienced it as so)
- Authority (somebody tells you it is so)
Problems with Observation
- Observation is not always possible (how do we observe the internal thoughts and
feelings of others)
- Observation is not always reliable (horse galloping problem- not solved without
photography
- Observation is not always true (visual illusions, the earth definitely appears to be flat)
- People don't always agree on what they are experiencing (the dress illusion, "fast rats
study"
Problem of Complexity
People are complicated: our brains and behaviour is by far the most complex system we
have ever observed in nature
Problem of Variability
,People are different: we act differently from one another, even in identical situations. We
even often act differently from ourselves from one moment to the next
Problem of Reactivity/demand characteristics
We act differently when they think they are being observed
Science Tools
- Special ways of measuring human thoughts and behaviours that give us precision and
eliminate many biases
- Research questions, operational definitions, instruments, data, descriptive statistics
Science rules
- Special ways of deciding what we observed that minimize the chance of biases and
help us formulate theories
- Openness, falsifiable hypotheses, double-blind experiments, ethics
Two types of research questions
- Exploratory: a study in which a hypothesis is not specified and where we are gathering
data to observe the world
- Confirmatory: a study in which we have a theory-defined hypothesis (prediction) that
we are testing
Operational Definition (tools)
- A description of a psychological property in concrete, measurable terms
- eg a performance on a midterm
- psychologists can and do disagree on what the appropriate operational definition
should be for many concepts in psychology (eg intelligence, personality, abnormal
behaviours)
,Instrument
anything that can provide us with a measurement of the operational definition (eg a
midterm)
Properties of an instrument
- Validity
- Reliability
- Power/Sensitivity
Validity (instrument)
the instrument actually measures what it claims to measure
Reliability
the instrument gives similar measurements each time it is used to measure the same
thing
Power/Sensitivity
the instrument can detect even very small differences in the measure (eg a difference
between a student who knows 84% of the material from one who knows 85%)
Data
- a collection of measurements
- operational definition + instrument can, when administered to a set of participants, give
us data
Two categories of data
- Quantitative data: data which is a numerical measurement (eg percentage on a test,
height in meters). Most common type of data in science
, - Qualitative data: non-numerical and is most often descriptive in nature (eg interview
transcripts, pictures)
Descriptive Statistics
a set of mathematical tools that helps us describe data
Central tendency
a statistic that describes the data's typical value
Mean
the mathematical average of the data
Median
the middle value of sorted data
Mode
the most common value (repeated)
Variability
how different the data points are from one another
Range
the difference between the largest and smallest value
Standard Deviation
- measures the dispersion of a dataset relative to its mean and is calculated as the
square root of the variance
- If the data points are further from the mean, there is a higher deviation within the data
set; thus, the more spread out the data, the higher the standard deviation
Openness
ANSWERS WITH COMPLETE SOLUTIONS GRADED A++
LATEST UPDATE
Three sources of knowledge
- Intuition (you just know it)
- Observation (you have experienced it as so)
- Authority (somebody tells you it is so)
Problems with Observation
- Observation is not always possible (how do we observe the internal thoughts and
feelings of others)
- Observation is not always reliable (horse galloping problem- not solved without
photography
- Observation is not always true (visual illusions, the earth definitely appears to be flat)
- People don't always agree on what they are experiencing (the dress illusion, "fast rats
study"
Problem of Complexity
People are complicated: our brains and behaviour is by far the most complex system we
have ever observed in nature
Problem of Variability
,People are different: we act differently from one another, even in identical situations. We
even often act differently from ourselves from one moment to the next
Problem of Reactivity/demand characteristics
We act differently when they think they are being observed
Science Tools
- Special ways of measuring human thoughts and behaviours that give us precision and
eliminate many biases
- Research questions, operational definitions, instruments, data, descriptive statistics
Science rules
- Special ways of deciding what we observed that minimize the chance of biases and
help us formulate theories
- Openness, falsifiable hypotheses, double-blind experiments, ethics
Two types of research questions
- Exploratory: a study in which a hypothesis is not specified and where we are gathering
data to observe the world
- Confirmatory: a study in which we have a theory-defined hypothesis (prediction) that
we are testing
Operational Definition (tools)
- A description of a psychological property in concrete, measurable terms
- eg a performance on a midterm
- psychologists can and do disagree on what the appropriate operational definition
should be for many concepts in psychology (eg intelligence, personality, abnormal
behaviours)
,Instrument
anything that can provide us with a measurement of the operational definition (eg a
midterm)
Properties of an instrument
- Validity
- Reliability
- Power/Sensitivity
Validity (instrument)
the instrument actually measures what it claims to measure
Reliability
the instrument gives similar measurements each time it is used to measure the same
thing
Power/Sensitivity
the instrument can detect even very small differences in the measure (eg a difference
between a student who knows 84% of the material from one who knows 85%)
Data
- a collection of measurements
- operational definition + instrument can, when administered to a set of participants, give
us data
Two categories of data
- Quantitative data: data which is a numerical measurement (eg percentage on a test,
height in meters). Most common type of data in science
, - Qualitative data: non-numerical and is most often descriptive in nature (eg interview
transcripts, pictures)
Descriptive Statistics
a set of mathematical tools that helps us describe data
Central tendency
a statistic that describes the data's typical value
Mean
the mathematical average of the data
Median
the middle value of sorted data
Mode
the most common value (repeated)
Variability
how different the data points are from one another
Range
the difference between the largest and smallest value
Standard Deviation
- measures the dispersion of a dataset relative to its mean and is calculated as the
square root of the variance
- If the data points are further from the mean, there is a higher deviation within the data
set; thus, the more spread out the data, the higher the standard deviation
Openness
