PSYC 303 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Internal Validity, Covariance, External Validity
Document Summary
Finding scientific sources: google scholar, psycinfo, components of an empirical journal article, abstract, summary of the article, read it to figure out what the article is about. Variable: something that changes or varies, so it needs to have at least two levels. The researcher controls a variable and assigns participants to different levels. Claim: an argument someone is trying to make, psychological scientists use data to test and refine theories and claims. Describes a particular rate or degree of a single variable. Argues that one level of a variable is likely to be associated with a particular level of another variable. Associations: positive and negative can make predictions, zero cannot. One of the variables is responsible for changing the other. Validity: reasonable, accurate, justifiable appropriateness of a conclusion or decision. Interrogating associational claims: construct validity, two conceptual variables that need to be operationalized appropriately, external validity, does the association claim generalize to other populations, contexts, times, or places, statistical validity.
