Discussion Questions for
Kerlinger and Lee (2000)
Kerlinger, F. N., & Lee, H. B. (2000). Foundations
of Behavioral Research. 4th Edition, Wadsworth / Thomson Learning. ISBN:
0-15-507897-6
Chapter
1 Science and the Scientific Approach (p. 3)
Reading: Schroeder et al. (1985) (handout)
Chapter 2 Problems and
Hypotheses (p. 23)
Chapter 3
Constructs, Variables, and Definitions (p. 41)
Chapter
11 Statistics: Purpose, Approach, Method (REVIEW) (p. 257)
Chapter 26
Foundations of Measurement (REVIEW) (p. 623)
Reading:
Calder et al. (1981) (handout)
Chapter
5 Relations (REVIEW) (p. 81)
Chapter 6 Variance and
Covariance (p. 103)
Chapter 8 Sampling and
Randomness (p. 163)
Chapter
9 Principles of Analysis and Interpretation (REVIEW) (p. 191)
Chapter
10 The Analysis of Frequencies (p. 221)
Chapter
12 Testing Hypotheses and the Standard Error (REVIEW) (p. 275)
Chapter
13 ANOVA: Foundation (REVIEW) (p. 307)
Chapter 14 Factorial ANOVA (p.
345)
Chapter
17 Ethical Considerations in Conducting Behavioral Science Research (p.437)
Chapter
18 Research Design: Purpose and Principles (p. 449)
Chapter
19 Inadequate Designs & Design Criteria
(p. 465)
Chapter 20 General
Designs of Research (p. 481)
Chapter
21 Research Design Applications: Randomized Grps & Corr Grps (p. 501)
Chapter 32 Multiple Regression
(p. 755)
Chapter
1 Science and the Scientific Approach (p. 3)
- How does commonsense impede the progress of
science?
- Which of Charles Peirce's "paths to
understanding" would religion rely upon?
- How does a hypothesis differ from a theory?
- How are inductive and deductive reasoning
related to hypotheses and theory?
- Why is theory the basic aim of science?
- How does science differ from technology and
how are they interdependent?
- What is a research question you would like
to explore? Describe how you think the
conceptual variables are related.
Chapter
2 Problems and Hypotheses (p. 23)
- Write a research problem and hypothesis
for each of the following variables: (1) anxiety, (2) motivation to study,
(3) stress at home, (4) happiness
- How well do your research problems in #1
above meet the three criteria for problem statements?
- Are Freudian concepts appropriate for
scientific inquiry?
- Formulate a hypothesis derived from Saal
& Moore's (1993) findings.
- How would you test the hypothesis that
cigarette smoking impairs cognitive performance?
- How would you test the hypothesis that
an increase in task interest will change performance?
- How can motivation at work be construed
as a multivariate problem for study?
- How can test anxiety be construed as a
multivariate problem for study?
Chapter
3 Constructs, Variables, and Definitions (p. 41)
- What is the difference between a concept
and construct? Give two psychological examples.
- How does a constitutive definition
differ from an operational definition? Give an example.
- Provide an operational definition for
delinquency that is binary and one that is polytomous.
- How does a true independent variable
(IV) differ from a subject variable? Give an example of each.
- How can age be defined operationally as
a trichotomous or a linear variable?
- Give an example of how gender can be
used as either a true IV or subject variable.
- What is an intervening variable that
could influence the relationship between psychotherapy and reduction in
anxiety?
- How could anxiety be conceptualized as
both an independent and dependent variable?
Chapter
11 Statistics: Purpose, Approach, Method (REVIEW) (p. 257)
- What it the one major purpose of
statistics? Give an example using your research question.
- Define sample variance and population
variance in words. How do they differ?
- What is the law of large numbers and
what implication does if have for research design?
- What is the difference between a
bivariate distribution and a frequency distribution?
- How is the central limit theorem
important for inferential statistics?
- What is a standard error? Give examples
of two two.
- Distinguish between a parameter and
statistics and give an example of each from your research project.
Chapter 26
Foundations of Measurement (REVIEW) (p. 623)
- What is the first step in measurement?
- Give examples of two variables from your project
that could be measured at the ordinal level.
- What are some advantages and disadvantages in
reducing linear variables to the nominal levels for use in an experimental
design?
- Give an example of two indicants of properties
you will use in your project.
- If a music CD is awarded a five star rating, what
level of measurement is being used?
- At what level of measurement are Likert-type
rating scales?
- If a construct could be measured using either an
ordinal or ratio scale, is an advantage of using the ratio scale. Give an
example.
- Think of two nominal variables with at least
three categories that could reflect a construct with an underlying continuum.
Reading:
Calder et al. (1981) (handout)
Chapter
5 Relations (REVIEW) (p. 81)
- Give an example of one set of pairs from
your lab 1.
- What is meant by "ordered
pairs" and why is it important?
- Give an example of the domain and range
for an ordered set of pairs from your lab1.
- What is a function and why is it a
special kind of relation?
- What two things does the correlation
coefficient tell us?
- Write in narrative form the
computational formula for the product-moment correlation (not in this
chapter)
- Contrast and compare bivariate
correlation and regression.
- Contrast and compare multivariate
correlation and regression.
- What does multivariate regression
provide that bivariate regression does not?
Chapter 6 Variance and
Covariance (p. 103)
- What is a sampling unit?
- Define variance and standard deviation
- How can sample variance be used to
estimate population variance?
- What is the purpose of squaring a
deviation score?
- What is the difference between
systematic variance and error variance?
- Define error variance.
- What was the IV in one of the
experimental studies used to illustrate between group variance? What does
the X represent in this case?
- What variance component is left over
after between group variance is removed from the total variance?
- What it the difference between
correlations and covariances?
Chapter 8 Sampling and
Randomness (p. 163)
- Is it more important to external or
interval validity for a sample to be representative? Why?
- Describe how randomization works with
sample selection and assignment of Ss to conditions.
- What is the relationship between sample
size and error, i.e. deviation from population values?
- Describe three kinds of sampling that
will likely result in obtaining a representative sample. Which is most
likely to result in a representative sample?
- How will you define the population for
your study and what sampling strategy will you use?
Chapter
9 Principles of Analysis and Interpretation (REVIEW) (p. 191)
- What is the difference between an
observational unit (sampling unit, element of the set) and the
measurement?
- What is the difference between analysis
of data and interpretation of data?
- How is the term frequency used to
describe either nominal or ratio level data?
- Give an example of how two of the linear
constructs from your project can be operationalized as a dichotomized
variable.
- Describe the difference in how graph
lines displaying main effects vs. interaction.
- Is ANOVA used most often to analyze
experimental or correlational data? Why?
- What is profile analysis generally used
for?
- How does multiple regression differ from
canonical correlation and discriminant analysis?
- How did Lepper, Greene, and Nisbett
(1973) find that extrinsic rewards influenced intrinsic interest?
- What are the differences between the two
types of factor analysis procedures?
- Why is it more difficult to interpret
inconclusive results rather than positive results?
Chapter
10 The Analysis of Frequencies (p.221)
-
Identify two true dichotomous
variables (constructs) and two artificial dichotomies within the theoretical
framework of your project.
- Create operational definitions for the
IV and DV variables in your project that could be used in a 2 X 2 table.
- Use the on-line chi square calculator to
calculate the X2 statistic for datasets in Tables 10.2 and 10.3.
What conclusions can you draw?
- Use the on-line chi square calculator to
calculate the X2 statistic for datasets in study questions #`1
and #2 for this chapter. Are the results the same given by the authors?
- Why is the one dimensional table
(goodness of fit) generally not of interest to us in this course?
- If 80% of high
aspiration students graduate from college and only 20% of low aspiration
graduate, what are the odds that a high aspiration student will
graduate?
- Using SPSS, calculate the X2
in the chapter study question #1.
Chapter
12 Testing Hypotheses and the Standard Error (REVIEW) (p. 275)
- How is the standard error used in making
inferences about research results?
- Why is it important to understand the
implications for absolute vs. relative size?
- Would you ever use the null as a
substantive hypothesis? If so, give an example.
- Name two types of standard errors.
- How do you calculate the standard error
of the mean (SEm)?
(note error in Table 21.1) N is actually Mean (N
for each sample is 100)
- What is the relationship between the
shape of a sampling distribution and the shape of the population
distribution (Central limit theorem)?
- How does sample size affect the shape of
the sampling distribution for differences between means?
- Give an example of a type I and type II
errors that could occur with your project.
- What are the 5 steps of hypothesis
testing?
- What is the relationship between the
sample size and the standard error and what does this have to do with power?
- What information about the population
can help in determining sample size needed?
Chapter
13 ANOVA: Foundation (REVIEW) (p. 307)
- How is the magnitude of the significance
test affected by the effect size and size of the study? Why?
- Explain how three ways of maximizing t
cause it to increase.
- What is the difference between the t
for independent and non-independent samples?
- Explain each of three assumptions for
errors when using the t test.
- How is t related to F and
what are the advantages of each when comparing means?
- Why is eta used as an effect size estimate
for F?
- Why is F a ratio and why does it
have two sets of degrees of freedom?
- How does the Bonferonni procedure protect
the researcher from doing something wrong?
Chapter 14 Factorial ANOVA (p.
345)
- What are the two primary reasons for conducting a
factorial design?
- How many factors and levels of each factor are
there in a 4X5 factorial design?
- How are row effects and column
effects defined?
- What are interaction, or residual effects
that are left over after the row and column effects have been partitioned
from the grand mean?
- Is the source of error in a factorial design
derived from the individual differences within each condition or within each
treatment (factor)?
- Why is eta used to estimate the effect size in
factorial designs?
- How many interactions are possible in a A X B X C
design? What are they?
- How may two-way interactions are there in a
four-way design and how many three-way interactions?
Chapter
17 Ethical Considerations in Conducting Behavioral Science Research (p.437)
- Is it important, from an ethical standpoint, to
debrief even when deception was not employed?
- Is surreptitious observation of elevator riders
an unethical use of surveillance?
- Is it ethical to conduct research on elderly
demented patients if consent is given by their power of attorney?
- Give an example of conducting research when the
cost is higher for doing it than not doing it, and another in which the cost
is higher for NOT doing it.
Chapter
18 Research Design: Purpose and Principles (p. 449)
- What are the two basic purposes of
research design?
- What is the interaction hypothesis in the Walster,
Cleary & Clifford (1970) study?
- Why is the design in figure 18.3 inadequate to
test the interaction hypothesis?
- What is the mechanism operating behind the
principle of controlling variance?
- What happens to variance when a continuous
variable is dichotomized?
- What is a way to avoid the problem created by
dichotomizing the continuous variable?
- What are the active and attribute variables in
the study comparing mastery with traditional methods of teaching?
- How can you maximize your experimental variance
in your project?
- What are some ways you can minimize extraneous
variables other than using random assignment?
- What effect does increasing reliability have on
error variance?
Chapter
19 Inadequate Designs & Design Criteria
(p. 465)
- What is a problem involving your project
that can only be studied using a non-experimental design?
- How would you conduct a "one-shot
case study" for your project?
- How is the one group, before-after
design an improvement over the one-shot case study?
- Give an example of how a
"reactive" effect could occur in studying your research problem.
- Give an example of how a
"history" effect could be confounded with a manipulation.
- Give an example of how maturation may
affect a dependent variable.
- What problem is encountered when high
and low scoring participants are selected for participants.
- How could the one group before-after
design be improved to account for the regression
- Is generalizability more important for
basic or applied research?
- Are rival hypotheses a problem for
internal or external validity?
- Explain how instrumentation, selection,
and attrition could jeopardize internal validity in an experiment to test
the effectiveness of an exercise program.
- What are ecological and variable
representativeness?
- How can a "reactive" effect
affect external validity? Give an example.
Chapter 20 General
Designs of Research (p. 481)
- Are you using a "randomized control
group post-test design" only for your project?
- What is a
"matched-by-correlated criterion design"?
- What are the two main disadvantages of
trying to use a matched design?
- What difficulty arises using
frequency distribution matching for age and reaction time?
- What is a nuisance variable you could
use for a control in your project?
- What is an advantage and disadvantage of
using participants are their own controls?
- What are two ways to analyze the
pre-post design data?
Chapter
21 Research Design Applications: Randomized Grps & Corr Grps (p. 501)
- Does "nested" or "crossed"
describe a repeated measures design?
- Why is repeated measures referred to as a
"within" subjects design?
- What is the advantage of using subjects as their
own controls?
- What is the difference between how between
subjects variance is used in a randomized (group) design and a repeated
measures design?
- What is the difference between fixed and random
effects?
- What is the purpose of a Latin Square design?
- Give an example of a study using a repeated
measures design that would require counterbalancing.
- What is the difference between sequence and
order?
- Give an example of a 2 (between) X 2 (within)
design using variables in your project.
Chapter 32 Multiple Regression
(p. 755)
- What's the difference between
correlation and regression?
- What information does the intercept and
slope tell about the relationship
between the predictor(s) and criterion?
- What is the standard error of estimate
and what does it tell us about the accuracy of prediction?
- What is a "residual"?
- For the best prediction to occur what
should be the level of correlation among the predictors?
- Does a standardized or unstandardized
regresion weight reflect the measurement scale used?
- How could MR help to examine theory
related to your project?
C'est finis