Essential Guide to AP Psychology: Research Methods & Data
School
Westlake High School**We aren't endorsed by this school
Course
PSYCHOLOGY AP
Subject
Psychology
Date
Dec 10, 2024
Pages
11
Uploaded by ConstableSalmon4799
Mr. ShermanAP Psychology Unit 0 Reading GuideAn Introduction to Psychological Science Practices: Research Methods and Data InterpretationDirections:While reading the assigned pages of the unit, complete the reading guide below. Feelfree to add additional information to the guide as you see fit. Module 0.1: The Scientific Attitude, Critical Thinking, and Developing Arguments (pgs.0-4-0-8) 1.What are the four science practices that all students should develop throughout the AP psychology course?a.b.c.d.2.What are the three key elements of the scientific attitude and how do they support scientific inquiry? Be sure to explain all three of these reasons in detail.a.b.c.3.What is critical thinking?Module 0.2: The Need for Psychological Science (pgs. 0-9-0-13) 1.Explain how cognitive biases, such as hindsight bias, overconfidence and the tendency to perceive order in random events illustrate why science-based answers are more valid thanthose based on common sense. Be sure to define hindsight bias, overconfidence, and perceiving order in random events in your answer. 1
Mr. ShermanAP Psychology Module 0.3: The Scientific Method (pgs. 0-14-0-21)1.Defineeach of the following parts of the scientific method. ●Scientific method-●Peer Reviewers-●Theory- ●Hypothesis-●Falsifiable-●Operational definition-●Replicate (no example needed for this one)-2.What is the difference between non-experimental methods and experimental methods?3.Read pgs. 0-16-0-19. While advantages and disadvantages are not clearly given, many ofthem are implied in the reading on each one—you should have at least 2 per box! 2
Mr. ShermanAP Psychology Non-ExperimentalMethods:DefinitionAdvantagesDisadvantagesCase StudiesNaturalistic ObservationSurveys4.Using the three above, what would be the best research method to use to study each of these? Why?●People who have one or more hobbies report more job satisfaction than people with no hobbies:●Siamese twins are stared at by younger children more often than by adults:●Unmarried cab drivers talk more with their customers than do married cab drivers:●More men than women report fantasies of making large sums of money:5.Describe an example of the effect of wording in surveys.●Define social desirability bias.●Define self-report bias.3
Mr. ShermanAP Psychology 6.What is a sampling bias? What happens if you have a sampling bias in a survey (or even an experiment)?7.All surveys and experiments start with a representative sample. For example, if the population I want to survey is all students in High Point, I would take 10 students from each high school in High Point —public and private. Those 10 students per school wouldbe my representative sample. Nothing to answer here… just reiterating.8. Define random sample and explain why random sampling is so important.9.Define population. What is a good point to remember here?Module 0.4: Correlation and Experimentation (pgs. 0-22-0-31)1.What does it mean when we say two things are correlated, and what are positive and negative correlations?2.Define the following:●Correlation-●Correlation Coefficient-●Variable-●Scatterplots-4
Mr. ShermanAP Psychology Draw out the three different types of scatter plots and label them:3. On page 0-25, in the AP Science Practice section. Complete the “You Try It”! portion here. Were you able to identify three possible ways to interpret that finding? Using scientifically derived evidence presented above, explain why correlation does not equal causation.4.Correlation Coefficients range from -1 to +1. What does it mean when a score is very close to -1 or +1 (for example, the coefficient is -.98 or +.87)?5.Think of another example of where correlation does not prove causation and share it here.6.What is an illusory correlation? Give an example. 7.What is regression toward the mean?8.Define the following about experiments:●Experiment-●Experimental Group-5
Mr. ShermanAP Psychology ●Control Group-●Random Assignment-●Single-blind Procedure-●Double-Blind Procedure-●Placebo Effect-●Independent Variable-●Confounding Variable-●Experimenter Bias-●Dependent Variable-9.Each of the following is a hypothesis of an experiment. For each one list the IndependentVariable (IV), Dependent Variable (DV), Experimental Group (EG), and Control Group (CG). ●“There will be a statistically significant difference in graduation rates of at-risk high-school seniors who participate in an intensive study program as opposed to at-risk high-school seniors who do not participate in the intensive study program.”o IV:o DV:o EG:6
Mr. ShermanAP Psychology o CG:●“After watching a videotaped re-enactment of a bank robbery, people will recall more about the robbery while being questioned under hypnosis by a police officeras opposed to not being under hypnosis.”o IV:o DV:o EG:o CG:●“A new drug will increase the maze running performance of older rats.”o IV:o DV:o EG:o CG:10.What is validity?Module 0.5: Research Design and Ethics in Psychology (pgs. 0-32 - 0-37)Comparing Research Methods. Fill in the following table in your own words (be sure to paraphrase). (pg. 0-32)Research MethodBasic PurposeHow ConductedWhat is ManipulatedWeaknessesNon-experimental: Case Studies, Naturalistic Observations, SurveysNon-experimental: Correlational StudiesExperimental7
Mr. ShermanAP Psychology 1.What is the difference between quantitative research and qualitative research?2.Read the entire section on ethics in research with animals, pgs. 0-34 & 0-35. You do not need to write anything down. Now read the article below.Professor King is a psychobiologist working on the frontiers of a new and exciting research area of neuroscience: canned brain grafting. Research has shown that neural tissue can be removed from the brains of monkey fetuses and implanted into the brains of monkeys that have suffered brain damage. The neurons seem to make the proper connections and sometimes are effective in improving performance in brain-damaged animals. These experiments offer important animal models for human degenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s/Professor King wants to transplant tissue from fetal monkey brains into the entorhinal cortex of adult monkeys; this is the area of the human brain that is involved with Alzheimer’s disease. The experiment will use 20 adult rhesus monkeys. First, the monkeys will be subjected to ablation surgery in the entorhinal cortex. This procedure will involve anesthetizing the animals, opening their skulls, and making lesions using a surgical instrument. After their recovery, the monkey’s will be tested on a learning task to make sure their memory is impaired. Three monthslater, half of the animals will be given transplant surgery. Tissue taken from the cortex of monkey fetuses will be implanted into the area of the brain damage. Control animals will be subjected to the sham surgery, and all animals will be allowed to recover for two months. They will then learn a task to test the hypothesis that the animals having brain grafts will show better memory than the control group. Professor King argues that this research is in the exploratory stages and can only be done using animals. She further states that by the year 2030 about 72 million Americans will have Alzheimer’s disease and that her research could lead to a treatment for the devastating memory loss that Alzheimer’s victims suffer. and answer the following... Having read the ethics section explaining the question of animal research, would you approve the following research? Why or why not?8
Mr. ShermanAP Psychology 3.What are the four basic ethical principles developed by the American Psychological Association (APA) that guide researchers with human participants? 4.In your own words, how do psychologists’ values influence what they study and how they apply their results? (0.5-4)Module 0.6: Statistical Reasoning in Everyday Life (pgs. 0-40 - 0-47)*Statistics is the hardest part of research methods in psychology—please read this carefully! If you need to take extra notes to be clear on terms, you should add those here.1.Why is it important to understand basic statistics in psych?2.Define the following:●Descriptive Stats-●Histogram-●Mode-●Mean-9
Mr. ShermanAP Psychology ●Median-●Range-●Percentile rank -●Standard deviation-3.What is the difference between measures of central tendency and measures of variation?4.What does it mean when data has a skewed distribution? How does this happen? Why could this be misleading?5.What is standard deviation? Why is this the most useful way of measuring how much scores deviate from one another?6.What is the normal curve or normal distribution? Draw itbelow. Be sure to include everything in Figure 0.6-3, including the percentages under each section of the curve.10
Mr. ShermanAP Psychology 7.Let’s see how much you understand this normal curve stuff! If you take the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale test (a type of intelligence test we’ll talk about this semester) andyou score a 115. What percentage of people will score at or below your score? 8.Define inferential statistics.9.What three principles should you keep in mind to make sure your generalizations are reliable, be sure to define/explain each one.10. Define statistical significance. What is the number that psychologists stick to—for resultsto be statistically significant their odds of occurring by chance are less than _______ %?11. What is an important point to remember concerning statistical significance?11