PSYCH101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Confounding, Random Assignment, Central Tendency

• School: University of Waterloo
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYCH101
• Professor: Paul Wehr

Document Summary

Research articles contain several sections: abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion, references. Psychological constructs are abstract psychological concepts while operational definitions define constructs in terms of how it is to be measure. For example, intelligence can be defined by an iq test. The independent variable (iv) is the cause manipulated in the experiment and the dependant variable (dv) is the effect measured by the investigator. The confounding variable is closely associated with the independent variable (alternative cause ) and can be situation or person. Correlational studies investigate the relationship between two variables: study groups naturally occur, used for practical or ethical reasons, useful for the description and generation of new theories. Experimental studies investigate the effect of the iv on the dv by manipulating the first and observing what happens to the second: study groups controlled by random assignment, can determine cause and effect relationships.