APSY2216 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Dependent And Independent Variables

• School: Boston College
• Department: Counseling, Developmental, and Educational Psychology
• Course: APSY2216
• Professor: Thomson

Document Summary

Construct - an idea or a concept. Variables - a measureable attribute that can assume different values. Hypothesis - a tentative guess, a prediction (in social research, a prediction about behavior) possible outcome of our research. Ex: as math scores increase, science scores will increase as well. Ex: there is a relationship between reading scores and math scores. Rather than asking a question (why, what, how), we formulate a tentative guess suggesting a. Should be based on literature or theory. Stated in the form of a declarative statement. Directional hypothesis - research specifies a particular direction for the outcome. Non-directional hypothesis - the researcher makes no prediction in advance about the direction of. Hypothesis should be testable - you should be able to collect data to support or refute it. Hypothesis should be precise - clearly define the terms. Hypothesis should be rational - logically fitting what is already known about behavior.