CCMH 525 Week 4 Individual Assignment – Homework Exercise

CCMH 525 Week 4 Individual Assignment – Homework Exercise

CCMH 525 Week 4 Individual Assignment – Homework Exercise

Answer the following questions, covering material from Ch 8–10 of the Methods in Behavioral Research text:

What is a confounding variable, and why do researchers try to eliminate confounding variables? (2 points)

Pretest effects can be assessed with a research design called

A researcher is interested in studying the effects of story endings—predictable endings or surprise endings—on preference ratings. He randomly assigns participants into two groups—predictable ending or surprise ending—and instructs them to read the story and provide preference ratings. The experimenter’s variation of story endings is a

Review Milgram’s obedience experiment on p. 38 of the text. Who was the confederate in this experiment, and what was his role?

A researcher was interested in investigating the vocabulary skills of 6th graders in a program for gifted students. She gave a group of participants a test of vocabulary that was aimed at the 7th-grade level. She quickly discovered that there was limited variability in the scores because nearly all the students answered 90% or more of the questions correctly. This outcome is called a

How are research findings shared with others in the professional community?

A researcher is investigating verbal behavior among introverts and extroverts. The researcher first tests participants and classifies them as either introverted or extroverted. She then randomly assigns participants to a high anxiety or a low anxiety social group and observes the number of words spoken by participants. The researcher wants to learn more about the effects of both personality style—introversion or extroversion—and social situation—high or low anxiety—on verbal behavior. In this case, verbal behavior is defined as the number of verbal communications uttered within a 5-minute observation period. What type of design is this?