Handbook of Research and Quantitative Methods in Psychology

For Students and Professionals

R.M. Yaremko, Herbert Harari, Robert C. Harrison, Elizabeth Lynn

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2013
• Topic: Psychology
• eBook ISBN:
  9781135059804
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This comprehensive reference organizes extensive definitions and examples of key concepts in quantitative research into a single, convenient source. Alphabetically arranged and cross-referenced, The Handbook of Research and Quantitative Methods In Psychology presents:

* experimental procedures,
* research designs,
* statistical methods,
* information theory,
* psychophysics,
* behavioral terminology,
* scaling and testing.

ABA Design Any experimental design in which some treatment, environment, task, etc., is changed and then changed back, usually only once. (See also Retroactive Paradigm; Reversal Design.)

ABAB Design See Reversal Design.

ABBA Sequence A counterbalancing procedure applicable when two experimental treatments, A and B, are to be presented at least twice each to a subject. The treatments are given in the order A, then B, then B again, then A. If additional repetitions are given, the ABBA sequence may be repeated or inverted (i.e., BAAB). This helps ensure that such potentially confounding carryover effects as practice, fatigue, boredom, etc., are distributed more or less equally over performance in condition A and B.

EXAMPLE: Solution times for anagrams formed from common and from uncommon words are compared. Anagrams of four common words (Treatment A) and four uncommon words (Treatment B) are presented to each subject. To distribute order effects equally over the eight trials, the subjects receive the anagrams one at a time in the sequence ABBABAAB. To control for such things as initial experience, half of the subjects could be given the inverted sequence BAABABBA.

Abscissa The x or horizontal axis in a graph. (For an illustration see Coordinates.)

Absolute Judgment, Method of (syn. Single Stimuli, Method of) A psychophysical method in which a subject is presented with one stimulus at a time and is asked to make a judgment in absolute terms concerning some attribute of the stimulus. The subject is not provided with a standard stimulus or other stimuli against which to compare the stimulus being judged. For example, a subject may be asked to judge the length of a line in centimeters, the weight of an object in grams, the length of a time interval in seconds, the speed of an automobile in miles per hour, etc.

Absolute Scaling See Absolute Judgment.

Absolute Threshold (syn. Stimulus Threshold, abbr. RL) The smallest physical value of a stimulus that will produce a response some percentage (often 50%) of the time. The actual value of the stimulus that will produce a response will vary from subject to subject and in the same subject from time to time, so the concept of a threshold is a statistical one. For some senses there are both a lower absolute threshold and an upper absolute threshold (terminal threshold), that is, the maximal physical value of a stimulus that will produce a response 50% of the time. For example, in young adults the lower and upper thresholds for pitch of moderate-intensity tones are approximately 16 Hz and 16,000 Hz, respectively. For some senses the upper absolute threshold cannot be determined because excessively intense stimuli may be too painful.

A × B (A by B) Design See Factorial Design.

A × Subjects (A by Subjects) Design See Repeated-Measures Design.

Acceleration A change in the rate at which one variable, y, increases or decreases in value as a function of increase in the value of a related variable, x. In psychology the y variable is ordinarily a dependent variable and x is an independent variable. Acceleration indicates that the amount by which y changes as x changes one unit in value differs, depending on whether the increase in x occurs in the range of low values of x or in the range of higher values of x. (See also Negatively Accelerated Function; Positively Accelerated Function.)

Acceptance Region Sec Nonrejection Region.

Accidental Error See Random Error.

Accidental Sampling The most rudimentary form of nonprobability sampling in which subjects are selected indiscriminately until the desired sample size is reached. No attempt is made to control for biases and confounding errors. Street corner polls by mass media are typical of accidental sampling. (See also Incidental Sampling.)

Accuracy Lack of bias in a measurement. It is indexed by the mean of repeated measurements. The more accurate measurements are, the closer this mean is to the true value of the object being measured. For example, if a table is actually 1.5m long, a single measurement might give the value 1.48m or 1.53m; if the measuring instrument is accurate, however, the mean of a number of observations will be equal to 1.5m.

Achievement Test An instrument designed to measure what a person has learned within or up to a given time. (See also Aptitude Test.)

Acquisition Phase That segment of an experiment during which a response is practiced or learned (i.e., “acquired”). It is defined in terms of either a fixed time period or the period prior to the response reaching some criterion of stability. (See also Training Trial.)

Active Avoidance Training See Avoidance Training.

Activity Box A device designed to measure the amount of activity engaged in by a subject during a given period of time.

Activity Wheel A circular cage that rotates when the animal inside runs. It usually is used with small animals to provide exercise or to record changes in activity as a dependent variable in an experiment.

Adaptation See Adaptation Phase; Habituation.

Adaptation Phase That phase of a research project during which procedures are employed to accustom the subject to the research environment. This is done to reduce variability in the subject's behavior that might be due to the novelty of the situation or to achieve a prescribed level of behavioral or physiological change (e.g., dark adaptation) before further operations can be initiated. (See also Habituation.)

Additivity A functional relationship in which a response is determined by the sum of the effects of the independent variables. In the context of the analysis of variance, nonadditivity usually refers to the presence of an interaction effect, that is, the response is determined by the product of the effects of the independent variables or by some other functional relationship.

Adjusting Schedule of Reinforcement An operant conditioning procedure in which the characteristics of a subsequent reinforcement cycle are determined by the way an organism responds in the previous cycle. (See also Interlocking Schedule of Reinforcement.)

EXAMPLE: An operant chamber is programmed so that a rat receives food pellets on a fixed-interval 30-sec (FI-30) schedule of reinforcement. If it exhibits a high rate of responding during the early segments of that 30-sec interval, the next reinforcement interval will be lengthened (e.g., increased to 50 sec). If a low rate of responding is shown during the early segment of the interval, the next interval will be shortened (e.g., reduced to 15 sec).

Adjustment, Method of (syn. Average Error, Method of) A psychophysical method used to determine absolute and difference thresholds but having other applications as well. It is characterized by the fact that the subject must physically adjust some variable stimulus, often to match a designated standard.

EXAMPLE 1...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• How to Use This Book
• CATEGORICAL LISTING OF ENTRIES
• ENTRIES A TO Z
• Appendix A: Flow Diagram Guide to Statistical Analyses
• Appendix B: Greek Letter Symbols and Their Common Usages
• Appendix C: Metric Symbols and Conversion Values
• Appendix D: Table of Random Numbers and Random Permutations of the Digits 0–9
• Appendix E: Statistical Tables: