ASPPB Research Methods & Psychological Foundations 4 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which threat to internal validity occurs when participants in a study change naturally over time, independent of the treatment?
- Instrumentation
- Selection bias
- Maturation (Correct answer)
- Diffusion of treatment
Correct answer: Maturation
Maturation refers to changes in participants due to natural biological or psychological processes occurring over the course of a study.
Question 2: In Piaget's theory, the ability to understand that the amount of liquid remains the same when poured into a differently shaped container is called:
- Object permanence
- Conservation (Correct answer)
- Reversibility
- Centration
Correct answer: Conservation
Conservation is the understanding that quantity remains constant despite changes in appearance, typically mastered during the concrete operational stage.
Question 3: A Type II error in hypothesis testing means the researcher:
- Rejected a true null hypothesis
- Failed to reject a false null hypothesis (Correct answer)
- Used an inappropriate statistical test
- Overestimated the effect size
Correct answer: Failed to reject a false null hypothesis
A Type II error (false negative) occurs when the null hypothesis is false but the researcher fails to reject it.
Question 4: The concept of 'ecological validity' refers to:
- The degree to which findings generalize to real-world settings (Correct answer)
- The extent to which a measure captures all facets of a construct
- The consistency of a measure across different cultural groups
- The match between statistical model and population distribution
Correct answer: The degree to which findings generalize to real-world settings
Ecological validity concerns the extent to which research findings can be generalized to and applied in natural, real-world environments.
Question 5: Harlow's rhesus monkey experiments demonstrated that infant attachment is primarily driven by:
- Hunger reduction from feeding
- Contact comfort from the caregiver (Correct answer)
- Operant conditioning of social behaviors
- Classical conditioning of care-related stimuli
Correct answer: Contact comfort from the caregiver
Harlow's monkeys preferred the cloth 'mother' over the wire 'mother' that provided milk, demonstrating that contact comfort, not feeding, is the primary basis of attachment.
Question 6: In factor analysis, 'factor loadings' represent:
- The number of factors extracted from the data
- The proportion of variance explained by all factors combined
- The correlation between each observed variable and a latent factor (Correct answer)
- The eigenvalue associated with each factor
Correct answer: The correlation between each observed variable and a latent factor
Factor loadings are the correlations (or regression weights) that express the relationship between each observed variable and the underlying latent factor.
Question 7: Which reinforcement schedule produces the highest, most steady rate of responding and is most resistant to extinction?
- Fixed ratio
- Fixed interval
- Variable ratio (Correct answer)
- Variable interval
Correct answer: Variable ratio
Variable ratio schedules deliver reinforcement after an unpredictable number of responses, producing high, steady rates and strong resistance to extinction.
ASPPB Research Methods & Psychological Foundations 4
Which threat to internal validity occurs when participants in a study change naturally over time, independent of the treatment?