PSY 1101 Lecture 3: Experimental Research and Statistical Reasoning

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 1101
• Professor: Najwa Haddad

Document Summary

Types of research studies (cont"d from jan 11) Experimental research: we are allowed to infer causality through these two methods: Controlling all variables that could affect our results (will go into more detail later) Dependent variable: the variable being influenced/affected/changed by the independent variable. A placebo is something (such as a drug) that has no therapeutic value. Subjects can be given a placebo thinking that they are given the real treatment. This causes their condition to improve simply because they think the treatment has been administered (when in fact is has not) The subject is kept in the dark for the most important part of the study. Subject participates in the study without knowing its goal (if the subject knew the goal, this may influence how they answer survey questions or how they respond to medical treatment) Both the subject and researcher dealing directly with the subject are kept in the dark.