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