Research issues and analysis

Self- fulfilling prophecy

• When a researcher’s expectations influence that person’s own behavior, thus influencing the participant’s behavior– Non-verbal cues, body language

How to avoid self-fulfilling prophecy

• Double blind experiment– Neither participants or experimenter know who is

receiving the independent variable

• Single blind– The participants do not know who is receiving the

independent variable

• Placebo effect- a change in a participant’s behavior that results from a belief that he/she is receiving treatment (independent variable

Explaining the research…statistics

• Descriptive statistics- organizing data in a practical and efficient way– Frequency distribution- organizing data so we

know how OFTEN something occurs• Frequency polygon- shows the shape of data

distribution• Normal Curve-symmetrical, bell shaped curve

Central Tendency

• Measure of Central tendency- a number that describes something about the average score of a distribution– Mean- average– Median-middle number– Mode-most often – Standard deviation- measure of variability,

how far away from “normal” is it?

Standard Deviation

Correlation Coefficient

• Shows direction and strength of a relationship between two sets of variables– Positive correlation + as one variable

increases, the second variable increases– Negative correlation – as one variable

increases, the second variable decreases

Positive Correlation

Negative Correlation