Week Eight Homework Exercise 1

PSYCH/610 Version 2

University of Phoenix Material

Week Eight Homework Exercise
Answer the following questions covering material from Ch. 14 of Methods in Behavioral
Research:

1. What is replication, and what role does it play in increasing the external validity or
generalizability of a study? In what way is the IRB involved in using participants in a
research study?
Replication of research is a way of overcoming any problems of generalization that occur
in a single study. There are two types of replications to consider: exact replications and
conceptual replications. The role it plays in increasing the external validity or
generalizability of a study is that a failure to replicate could mean that either the original
results are invalid or that the replication attempt itself was not done correctly. The IRB is
involved in using participants in a research setting by ensuring that the individuals who
are involved in the research study were given informed consent and treated fairly.

2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using college students as participants in
research studies?
The advantages of using college students as participants in research study are that there
are all different types of ethnicities in college and therefore they are more representative
of the society as a whole. The disadvantages of using college students as participants in
research studies is that they are a unique population within themselves, and are going to
be limited to individuals who are trying to earn a degree.

3. What potential problems can arise from generalization of results to different cultures or
ethnic groups?
A few of the potential problems that can arise from generalization of results to different
cultures or ethnic groups are that when a study is conducted and it does not involve
diverse individuals to the study there would be no way to validate whether the study
results would apply to different ethnic group. The researcher may have to replicate the
study to ensure that the results are comparable.

4. What is meta-analysis, and how is it useful to practitioners and scholars?

Meta-analysis is when the researcher combines the actual results of a number of studies.
The analysis consists of a set of statistical procedures that employ effect sizes to
compare a given finding across many different studies. It is useful to practitioners and
scholars by allowing for statistical, quantitative conclusions whereas a narrative review
identifies trends in the literature and directions for future study—a more qualitative
approach. Which can lead to more accurate studies.

5. True or false: In many cases, meta analyses involves calculating an average effect size
for a relationship between variables.
True because meta-analysis involves examining several features of the results of studies,
including the effect sizes and significance levels obtained.
 Week Eight Homework Exercise 2
PSYCH/610 Version 2

6. True or false: Many constructs, such as physical attractiveness and self-esteem, appear
constant across cultures; thus, external validity is less of a concern when conducting
research on such constructs. Provide a brief explanation of your answer.
False, different cultures view different attributes as being physically attractive, therefore
external validity would not be able to apply in this situation because of the different ideas
of physical attractiveness, therefore the views on self-esteem would also vary.

7. Summarize the main points of the course, emphasizing the importance of research to the
psychology profession.
A few of the main points in this course would be first be defining the definition of theory
as well as hypothesis and how they apply to research in the psychology profession, as
well as the fundamentals of informed consent and how research participants have the
right to receive informed consent for the research that they will be participating in. We
learned that there is a difference between correlation and causation in research studies.
We also learned how a researcher must be aware of their own bias in order for the study
to be conducted properly, this way they do not force the study to provide the answers that
they “want”. We reviewed the definitions of dependent variables and independent
variables and how the relationship of the dependent and independent variables may
affect the study being conducted. We learned when in studies it may be best to have a
control group. We learned that there are more than one research design and how to
decide what type of design to use in different situations. We learned that graphs are
used as a visual representation of the data that has been collected. We learned about
the null hypothesis as well as what is required to rule out the null hypothesis and the
steps involved.

Reference:

Cozby, P.C., & Bates, S.C. (2015). Methods in Behavioral Research (12th ed.). New York, NY:
McGraw-Hill Education