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Research in Behavioral Science

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How representative are findings of the larger population from which ... in the characteristic being measured; however, the scale does not have an absolute zero ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Research in Behavioral Science


1
Research in Behavioral Science
  • Variable
  • Any attribute or property in which organisms vary
  • Must consist of at least 2 values

2
Common Goal of Behavioral Research
  • Behavioral variability
  • Why and how behavior
  • varies across situations
  • Differs among individuals
  • Changes over time

3
Analysis of Research
  • Descriptive Statistics
  • Summarize and describe behavior of subjects
  • Inferential Statistics
  • Answer questions
  • How likely are findings due to random extraneous
    factors?
  • How representative are findings of the larger
    population from which sample came?

4
Variance An Index of Variability
  • Variance
  • Measure of dispersion
  • Range
  • Standard Deviation

5
Variance
  • Total Variance is sum of
  • Systematic variance error variance

6
Variance
  • Systematic Variance
  • When some of total variability in one variable is
    related in a systematic fashion to variability in
    another variable

7
Variance
  • Error variance
  • Portion of total variance that is unrelated to
    the variables under investigation in a study

8
Variance
  • Distinguishing Systematic vs Error variance
  • Proportion of total variance that is systematic
    variance
  • Systematic variance / total variance

9
Steps to calculate variance
  • Calculate the mean
  • Subtract mean from each subjects score to obtain
    the deviation score
  • Square each participants score
  • Sum the squared deviation scores
  • Sum of Squares
  • Divide number of scores minus 1
  • variance

10
Another goal of behavioral research
  • Internal validity
  • Contingent on research design

11
Experimental Design
  • Purpose of a good experimental design
  • to minimize extraneous variation in order to
    increase likelihood that an experiment will
    produce internally valid results

12
Experimental Design
  • Between-Subjects Design
  • Within-Subjects Design

13
Measurement
  • Properties of event or attribute are being
    represented by names or numbers
  • Way we assign those numbers/names determines a
    measurement scale
  • Determines the conclusions we can draw

14
Scales of measurement
  • __________ is the weakest type
  • Examples include
  • Gender
  • Diagnostic category
  • Hair color
  • Nominal

15
Scales of measurement
  • ________ involves the rank ordering on a
    particular dimension, but does not indicate the
    distance between participants on the dimension
  • Examples include
  • Small, medium, and large
  • high, moderate, and low
  • Letter grades
  • Ordinal

16
Scales of measurement
  • _______ is used when equal differences between
    the numbers reflect equal differences between
    participants in the characteristic being
    measured however, the scale does not have an
    absolute zero
  • Examples include
  • IQ
  • Fahrenheit thermometer
  • Interval

17
Scales of Measurement
  • ________ is the highest level of measurement. It
    has a true zero point, invovling numbers that can
    be added, subtracted, multiplied, and divided
  • Examples include
  • Weight
  • Scores on certain tests
  • Ratio
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