Psychology 12 <br>
Final Exam Study Guide
Psychology 12
Research Methods
Final Exam Study Guide
Study Guide for Final Exam (Psych 12)
for March 26, 11:30 to 2:30
In general, if I spent time on something in lecture, you should consider that particularly
important. Concepts or issues in the book that are accompanied by figures or highlighted are
likely to be important. The exam will be the standard multiple choice questions (part 1) and
reasoning about data, experimental design, and statistical issues (part 2). Part 2 will be the same
structure as on the midterm, although the problems will be different.
Bring #2 pencils and a scantron sheet. If you forget to bring a scantron sheet, you can purchase
one from Dr. Burgess for the exorbitant price of $1 with the understanding that you are also
making a voluntary, non-tax deductable contribution to his lab's coffee fund.
Chp 3: How to Be Fair with Participants. Know about function of institutional review board
and role of the informed consent. Demand characteristics and how to minimize them is an
important part of the chp (this covers a fair amount of ground). Pay attention to bolded concepts.
Know about alternative experimenter-participant relationships and why these can be useful.
Know about why psychologists use animals in research.
Chp 4: How to Be Fair with Science. This is a pretty straightforward chp, but pay particular
attention to what Martin refers to as "moderate cheating" and "accepted cheating." Make sure
you're clear on the limits of what he is talking about.
Chp 10: Quasi-Experimental Design. I think chp 10 will be more difficult than the other three.
Know what quasi-experimentation is; when do you need it? Types of validity and the various
threats to validity are very important.You need to know more than just be able to say what they
are. Know what the implications of these threats are to your data. The nonexperimental and
quasi-experimental design section is important too. Know when you would use each design.
Table 10-1 provides a summary of part of this. I will not put on the test anything dealing with
interrupted time-series designs or the statistical analysis of quasi-experiments (pp 206-209.
Chp 11: How to Tell When You Are Ready to Begin. this is a straightforward chp too. Pgs
218-219 are very important, but don't ignore any of it.
Chp 12: Interpreting Experimental Results. Material from this chp not on multiple choice
section of exam, but I want to point out figure 12-10 which will be good practice for part 2 of
final exam. You should be able to easily answer the questions on fig 12-10.
Chp 13: Reporting Experimental Results. Nothing on exam from this chapter.