1. Select the TWO correct statements from those below with regard to psychological research:

You can fully understand the results of an IQ test without knowing anything about intelligence testing and standard scores.
If two things are correlated this signifies that one is the cause of the other.
A good knowledge of psychological research methods allows you to avoid making the mistakes that journalists, politicians and many others make because they lack the necessary conceptual understanding.
In most countries, in order to become a psychologist you will be required to conduct a piece of psychological research.

a) 1 & 2
b) 2 & 3
c) 1 & 4
d) 3 & 4

2. Which approach differentiates psychology from the many other disciplines that address similar types of questions?

a) Psychology is bound by research ethics
b) Psychology relies on the scientific method
c) Psychology relies on statistical tests
d) Psychology is bound by human populations
e) All of these differentiate psychology from other disciplines

3. Which THREE of the following are criteria for good psychological research?

It should be public.
It should be subjective.
It should be cumulative.
It should be parsimonious.

a) 1, 3 & 4
b) 1, 2 & 3
c) 2, 3 & 4
d) 1, 2 & 4

4. Five qualities that best describe good psychological research include:

a) Valid, scientific, ethical, experimental, correlational
b) Scientific, experimental, public, parsimonious, cumulative
c) Valid, reliable, public, parsimonious, cumulative
d) Experimental, quasi-experimental, survey, correlational, meta-analytic
e) None of these describe good research

5. Which of the following are FALSE regarding the role of theories in psychology?

Facts have to be integrated in terms of theoretical explanations.
Theories are statements of what rather than why.
Theories are capable of accounting for multiple facts, but cannot predict what might happen in novel situations.
All of the above.

a) 1 & 2
b) 1 & 3
c) 2 & 3
d) 4

6. What are the main types of assessment measures used by psychologists to study the outcomes of mental activity?

a) Theories, hypotheses, tests
b) Self-report, experiments, correlations
c) Behavioural, self-report, experimental
d) Behavioural, self-report, physiological
e) (a) and (d)

7. Which of the following is NOT a widely used research method in modern experimental psychology?

a) The (true) experimental method.
b) The quasi-experimental method.
c) The introspective method.
d) The case study method.

8. Experimental groups, treatment groups, and control groups represent ways to ____________ outcome variables.

a) Manipulate
b) Correlate
c) Attract
d) Validate
e) Generalise

9. In psychological research, the process of using multiple research methods to tackle the same issue is referred to as:

a) Experimentation
b) Revision
c) Manipulation Check
d) Measurement
e) Triangulation

10. Which of the following is true?

a) The dependent variable is manipulated by the experimenter.
b) Experimental control involves making every condition different in every respect except the treatment (i.e. the independent variable).
c) In a between-subjects experiment, control is typically achieved by a process of carefully assigning participants to the right conditions.
d) In a properly designed experiment, we can infer that an observed difference must be due to our manipulation of the independent variable.

11. Which of the following do we know to be true about the qualitative approach?

a) When researchers report and comment on behaviour, without attempting to quantify it, they are using a qualitative research method.
b) Qualitative methods can include coding, grouping and collecting observations.
c) The way people evaluate the friendliness of the people they meet, illustrates some features of a qualitative approach to psychological research.
d) All of the above.

12. Deciding which method to choose is a very complex issue and depends on many factors. Which of the following statements is correct when making this decision?

a) Practical issues are irrelevant when deciding which research method to use.
b) No one method is universally superior to any other.
c) Both (a) and (b).
d) Neither (a) nor (b)

13. Measurement scales used in psychological research are based on four types, which include:

a) Nominal, ordinal, internal, external
b) Internal, external, quasi, survey
c) Nominal, ordinal, interval, ratio
d) Interval, ratio, quasi, survey
e) Internal, external, interval, ratio

14. External validity is compromised by which one of the following?

a) Telling experimental participants about the hypotheses that we are investigating.
b) Informing participants that they are not being ‘tested’ as such.
c) Telling them that the data they produce is confidential and will not be discussed with any third party.
d) Telling participants that they can withdraw from the experiment at any time (and that they can ask that the data they generate be deleted).

15. The three measures of central tendency include:

a) Motivation, cognition, behaviour
b) Descriptive, inferential, evaluation
c) Mean, average, sum
d) Mean, median, mode
e) Quantity, quality, dispersion

16. Highlight the one FALSE statement about inferential statistics from the four given below:

a) When we use inferential statistics, usually we have to use a test statistic.
b) Two things influence our judgement about whether a given observation is in any sense remarkable: (1) the information that something is ‘going on’; and (2) the amount of random error in our observations.
c) The statistics we normally use in psychology contain both an information term and an error term, and express one as a ratio of the other.
d) The test statistic will yield a high value (suggesting that something remarkable is going on) when there is relatively less information than error, and a low value (suggesting that nothing remarkable is going on) when there is more information than error.

17. Which of the following statements is NOT true in relation to measures of dispersion?

a) The range is the difference between the maximum and minimum data values.
b) The most commonly used measure of dispersion is standard deviation (SD).
c) The standard deviation is equal to the square of the sum of the squares of all the differences (deviations) between each score and the mean, divided by the number of scores.
d) The square root of the standard deviation is called the variance.

18. If correlational analyses indicate that higher levels of depression are related to poorer physical health, can we infer that depression causes poor health?

a) No, because correlated variables do not indicate causal relationships
b) No, because correlated variables are not based on inferential statistics
c) Yes, because correlated variables indicate causal relationships
d) Yes, because correlated variables are based on inferential statistics
e) (a) and (b)

19. You have just conducted a research study. If the responses of the participants significantly differ from what would be expected if there was no relationship among the variables in your study, then it would be appropriate for you to:

a) Use a different method to replicate the results
b) Obtain a larger sample to replicate results
c) Perform manipulation checks
d) Reject the null hypothesis
e) All of the above

20. Research ethics represent an important component of psychological research because:

a) They provide a set of statistical procedures
b) They provide a set of rules to protect participants
c) They provide a set of hypotheses to be tested
d) They provide a set of standards for variable selection
e) All of the above