PSY 2110 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Random Assignment

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 2110
• Professor: Marie- Lyne Laliberte

Document Summary

Article 1 how to be a wise consumer of psychological research. Begin with the skeptical assumption that all claims are false: consider strengths and weaknesses of the evidence relevant to claim, pay careful attention the the methods that served as the basis for the claim. The two tools essential to good research methods are random sampling and experimental manipulation based on random assignment. Select a very small proportion of people from within a very large sample. Then estimate hat the entire population is like on the basis of the responses of those sampled. Whenever you hear the results of any survey, you should ask yourself how the surveyed people were sampled. Non-response bias: if only a small percentage of randomly sampled people agree to respond to a survey, it is quite likely that those who did respond are quite different from those who refused. How to ask why: experimental manipulations and random assignment.