Category > PsychologyPosted 26 Oct 2017My Price10.00
What is the independent variable?
what is the dependent variable?
What is the independent variable?
Ch 1 LabResearch MethodsFor each of the following research questions:•Identify independent (predictor) variable•Identify dependent (outcome) variable•Operationally define each (see how below)•Design a study to test –Would a descriptive/correlational or experimental be best?–Where will you get your subjects?–How and what data will you collect?•What kind of conclusions can be drawn?•Who can we generalize our findings to?•Discuss the relative level of difficulty involved in creating these operational definitions. Would they anticipate being challenged on the grounds of validity? Why or why not?1. A health psychologist and an industrial/organizational psychologist are interested in determining whether job stress has detrimental effects on health.2. A clinical psychologist would like to know whether a history of early childhood abuse is related to later vulnerability to depression, substance abuse, and addiction.3. A cognitive psychologist would like to find out whether more extensive education might protect individuals from dementia and related disorders later in life.4. An educational psychologist is studying the effectiveness of a special program for teen parents. The program provides education and support related to parenting skills and career goals. He wants to know whether participants’ school performance and psychological health improve.5. A social psychologist is interested in the relationship between religiosity and marital satisfaction.
Operational DefinitionsAs noted in the text, it is important to use operational definitions in order to accuratelymeasure variables of interest. Specifically, operational definitions define “the variable interms of how it is measured, manipulated, or changed.”Of course, researchers in psychology face some special problems in trying tooperationalize variables. Some variables are fairly easy to operationalize; others are not.A health psychologist who is studying the effects of social support on the success ofobese patients participating in a weight-loss problem can easily operationalize thedependent variable “weight loss.” Ask your students how they might operationalize theindependent variable “social support.” They should be able to figure out that “socialsupport” is perhaps a little less concrete and more contestable than “weight loss” but isstill relatively easy to make measurable.Variables that seem more vague or contestable are more difficult to operationalize.Researchers find ways to do so despite the difficulty, although sometimes the operationaldefinition chosen by researchers leads to controversy regarding whether the variable istruly represented by the chosen definition. If the operational definition created or chosenby the researchers does not actually represent the variable of interest, the study and itsresults may not be valid. An operational definition is not necessarily the best definition; itis simply a measurable one. The term “subject variable” is used to refer to study variablesthat cannot be manipulated or differentiated in any real sense.
