PSYC 234 Final Exam

Fall 2013

Think about this one for a moment.It was actually featured in a store's advertisement.

"Semi-Annual after-Christmas Sale"

Instructions

The only source that should be consulted for this exam is the textbook. No other sources should be used including internet sources. Also, work must be done independently. On short answer questions, err on the side of providing too much rather than too little information.All questions are worth 10 points each.

1) Dr. Pardy is interested in studying the research question, "do blondes have more fun?"Because he is a good researcher, Dr. Pardy knows the importance of operational definitions in research.What terms in his research question need an operational definition?Provide a specific operational definition of these terms.

2) What it the principle of falsifiability?Why is this concept crucial to the understanding of research design and statistics?

3) Find the median of the following distribution of scores:

64, 50, 46, 66, 62, 64

4) Dr. Spock found a correlation coefficient of r = -.90 between IQ and social skills.Interpret this correlation coefficient discussing the strength, direction, and general conclusion that can be made from the correlation coefficient.

5) What are the advantages and disadvantages of using an experiment as a research method?

6) Compare and contrast descriptive statistics and inferential statistics.

7) What is an outlier?Detail two statistical tools where you would especially want to pay attention to the presence of outliers?

8)

A) List 3 commonly used measures of central tendency.

B) List 2 commonly used measures of variability.

9) Compare and contrast Type I and Type II errors.

10) Compare and contrast the null hypothesis and alternative hypothesis.

11) Compare and contrast a one-tailed test and Two-tailed test.

12) Compare and contrast the z-test and the t-test

13)Overview the appropriate use of the chi-square goodness-of-fit test.

14) Why is an understanding of research design and statistics a necessary component of a psychology curriculum?

15) If Jack scored 15 on a test with a population mean of 20 and a population standard deviation of 5

a) What is his z-score?

b) What does the z-score you computed mean?