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AP Psychology
Research Methods
AP Psychology
Research Methods
Big Question: How do psychologists conduct research in their field? What is the process for proving or
disproving a hypothesis? What sets experiment apart from other types of scientific research?
1. Why are theories and hypotheses important in psychology? Why do we need to replicate studies that
have been conducted?
2. Justin Bieber has just hired you as his personal experimenter. He is interested in only one goal: dating as
many girls as possible. Justin is wondering if the length of his hair makes a difference in how many
girls go out with him. How would you set-up this experiment? After describing your experiment, label
the Independent Variable, Dependent Variable, and any Confounding Variables.
3. Because you’ve gained world renown for your work with JBieb, your high school hires you as their new
consultant. They’d like you to create an experiment that determines the effect of study time on
exam performance. Create an experiment that determines this. After describing your experiment, label
the IV, DV, Control Group, Experimental Group, and any confounding variables.
4. What is one advantage and one disadvantage of Surveys?
5. Create an example where a naturalistic observation would be more appropriate than a case study.
6. Which of the six experimental ethics we discussed in class do you believe to be the most IMPORTANT
and which do you think is the LEAST important? Why?
7. The Emma Watson Question: Emma grew up in England but has spent
most of her professional life in the United States. Because she is an
amazing actress, she has perfected both an English and an American
accent. She wonders which accent people prefer. In Harry Potter 8: The
Seductress’s Secret, she used an American accent. In Harry Potter 9:
The Revenge of Ron, she used a British accent. Harry Potter 8
grossed $1.2 billion dollars worldwide. Harry Potter 9 grossed $1.21
billion dollars worldwide. Emma concludes people prefer her British
accent. Why would the term “statistical insignificance” apply to her
faulty thinking?
8. When would it be more appropriate to use a double-blind study than a single-blind study?
9. What type of data set might create a negatively skewed distribution? (You can make up an actual data
set of numbers or just generally describe what it would include.)
NOTE: Don’t confuse this with correlations! Distributions and
correlations ARE DIFFERENT!!!
Key Terms
Using your own words, write a brief definition or explanation of each of the following. Feel free to be as succinct as possible as long
as the definition makes sense to you. Do this after or while reading the assigned pages for class.
1. descriptive studies -
a. survey -
b. case study -
c. naturalistic observation -
d. correlational study -
i. positive correlation -
2. experiment -
a. theory -
b. hypothesis -
e. experimental group -
f. control group -
g. confounding variables -
h. experimental ethics -
i. animals in experimentation -
j. population -
k. sample -
l. random sample -
m. random assignment -
n. Hawthorne effect -
o. placebo -
i. placebo effect -
p. self-fulfilling prophecy –
q. single-blind study -
r. double-blind study -
s. operational definitions -
t. reliability -
u. statistical significance -
3. descriptive statistics -
a. mean -
b. mode -
c. median -
d. normal distribution -
g. range -
h. standard deviation -
4. inferential statistics -