Psych 2310 1st Edition Lecture 1 Outline of Last Lecture I. Went over syllabusOutline of Current Lecture I. Designing an experimentCurrent LectureI. Designing an experiment1. Formulate testable hypothesisa. Null hypotheses= General statement that there is no relationship between the two variables being testedb. Experiment tries to disprove the null hypotheses2. Decide who to studya. Bad decisions here limit the generalizability of your results.b. You want a large, random sample3. Decide how to manipulate the independent variable4. Decide how to measure the dependent variable5. Decide how to assign the conditiona. Random assignment is usually bestb. Make sure participants know what the study is about generally, but not the specifics. They don’t need to know what condition they are receivingi. If not demand/placebo effect may take place (When a participant wants to be a good, well-behaved patient)6. Decide what variables to control/equalize. a. Problem: Confounding variables may explain the results.b. Confounding variable= An extra variable in the experiment that may change the results of the experiment7. Analyze the data and draw conclusionsa. Statistically significant (p<.05)=Big enough to be very unlikely to happen by chance alone.i. Factors that affect statistical difference:1. Size of samplea. The bigger the sample the more likely to be true it is2. Size of the effecta. The longer the effect the more significant 3. Background variability or noisea. The more scores clump together the more significantThese notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor’s lecture. GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes, not as a
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