PSYC 2001 Lecture Notes - Dependent And Independent Variables, Internal Validity, Confounding
19 Feb 2014
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Document Summary
External validity: the undergraduate participant problem, cross-species generalizations (smith, minda, & washburn, 2004, the but it"s not real life! argument. Data analysis and data interpretation are two completely different things. Researchers can (and often do) come to different interpretations starting from identical data. A clinical psychologist decides to evaluate the efficiency of the medication r22 to treat anxiety. 8 participants in the r22 condition improved compared to only four in the placebo. Therefore, r22 is an effective treatment for anxiety. The majority of participants who had withdrawn did so because the experimentation situation made them feel anxious! Attrition: a loss of participants during a study that may lead to biased results. The data for the participants who completed the study were not in question. Any component of a research study that raises doubts about the quality of the research process or the interpretation of the research results is a threat to validity.
