Discussion questions and learning objectives

¶ … External Validity - is the degree to which the conclusions of a study would hold true under different circumstances.

Field Experiment -- are experiments that are conducted outside of a laboratory.

Internal Validity - is the approximate truth about inferences in regards to cause and effect.

is a proposed explanation for an observed occurrence

Operationalization -- is the process of defining something that is not clear so that it can be measurable and testable.

Treatment levels -- the level at which a treatment is administered to an experimental variable.

Reliability - is the consistency of a set of measurements or instrument.

Internal Consistency -- is a measurement of the correlations between different items on the same test.

Validity -- the degree to which something accurately reflects the concept that is being measured.

Content Validity -- is the extent to which a measurement returns the specific intended outcome.

Criterion-Related Validity - is the measure of how well one variable predicts an outcome based on information from other variables.

1. Distinguish between the following:

a) internal validity and external validity - internal validity is the approximate truth about inferences regarding cause and effect and external validity is the degree to which the conclusions of a study would hold true under different circumstances.

b) Preexperimental design and quasi-experimental design- a Preexperimental design is a design that acts as a blueprint for the actual research and a quasi-experimental design is a design that resembles a quantitative or qualitative research design but lacks controls.

c) history and maturation -- history refers to events that take place outside of the experiment that may affect participants' responses to the experiment and maturation refers to the change that occurs during the course of an experiment.