Understanding Research Design

What is generally referred to when discussing the broad categories of experimental research versus applied research?

What is the purpose of an institutional review board (IRB)?

Can a theory be proven? Disproven?

What are the distinguishing elements of:

a case study, a descriptive study, a correlational design, and an experimental design?

Include things like:

sample size, naturalistic observation, surveys, manipulating variables (IVs, DVs), control groups, random assignment.

In research, how do you spot an independent variable? Dependent variable? Third-degree variable?

What are the elements of a debriefing? Of operational definitions?

Broadly speaking, what is reliability? Validity?

Describe what is meant by a theory? A hypothesis?

Why are human beings so difficult to study?

Describe single-blind and double-blind research methods.

What is the difference between random assignment and random sampling?

What is the relationship between a population and a random sampling? Why use random sampling?