Designing Experiments-Psychological
Humanities
Every day we hear about research findings related to psychology, but often the conclusions that people draw from the research that was conducted are incorrect.To be an educated and critical consumer of information, you need to understand how research is conducted and why the conclusions we can draw are limited by the methodology used.You have learned about the difference between correlational and experimental studies, so this assignment will give you some extra practice in applying what you have learned to a real example ripped right from the headlines.
You will read a news article about one of these findings and then propose an experiment that would test this hypothesis：https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/facebook-has-bec…
- Some might read (or skim) that article and mistakenly assume that the research referenced in the article is evidence that doing one thing will cause another to change.Briefly explain, in your own words, why we cannot assume that is true from a correlation between two variables.To illustrate your point, give at least one alternative explanation for why the two variables in your article might be correlated without one causing the other.
- Describe how you might design an experiment to test whether one of the variables in your article is actually causing a change in the other variable.
- What are the conceptual independent and dependent variables? Please label them explicitly. How specifically would you operationalize each?For example, what if someone claimed that coloring in an adult coloring book can increase academic performance?
- Here are some examples of responses that students might come up with for this assignment:
- What is the hypothesis you are testing?(Be sure to write that as a statement in which you are predicting that one thing causes something else.)What is your null hypothesis?
- What are the basic steps in your experiment?What aspect of that procedure do you need to do in order to compare two different groups of participants and conclude that manipulating the IV caused differences in the DV?Why is that specific aspect of your procedure needed to a causal conclusion?
- Describe one other aspect of your procedure that would help eliminate the risk of a specific research bias or experimental mistake.
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Needs More |
Conceptually, I am testing whether engaging in a calm, focused activity causes an increase in academic performance.I would have people do something relaxing and then measure exam performance. |
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Good to Go! |
Conceptually, I am testing whether engaging in a calm, focused activity causes an increase in academic performance.The idea of a relaxing activity would be operationalized as 15 minutes coloring in an adult coloring book prior to a final exam and I would use scores on that exam to operationalize academic performance. |
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