Beginning Behavioral Research

Ralph L. Rosnow is now Thaddeus Bolton Professor Emeritus at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA, where he taught courses in research methods and statistics for many years and directed the Ph.D. program in social and organizational psychology. He also taught research methods at Boston University in a master’s degree program in communication research and at Harvard University as a visiting professor in the psychology department.http://astro.temple.edu/~rosnow Robert Rosenthal is a Distinguished Professor at the University of California at Riverside and Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology, Emeritus, Harvard University. In the realm of statistical data analysis, his special interests are in experimental design and analysis, contrast analysis, and meta-analysis. He served as co-chair of the Task Force on Statistical Inference of the American Psychological Association.http://psych.ucr.edu/faculty/rosenthal

• In this Section: Brief Table of ContentsFull Table of Contents1. BRIEF TABLE OF CONTENTS PART I GETTING STARTED Chapter 1 Behavioral Research and the Scientific MethodChapter 2 From Hunches to Testable HypothesesChapter 3 Ethical Considerations and GuidelinesPART II OBSERVATION AND MEASUREMENT Chapter 4 Methods of Systematic ObservationChapter 5 Methods for Looking Within OurselvesChapter 6 Reliability and Validity in Measurement and ResearchPART III DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION Chapter 7 Randomized Experiments and Causal InferenceChapter 8 Nonrandomized Research and Causal ReasoningChapter 9 Survey Research and Subject RecruitmentPART IV DESCRIBING DATA AND DRAWING INFERENCES Chapter 10 Summarizing the DataChapter 11 Correlating VariablesChapter 12 Understanding p Values and Effect Size IndicatorsPART V STATISTICAL TESTS Chapter 13 The Comparison of Two ConditionsChapter 14 Comparisons of More Than Two ConditionsChapter 15 The Analysis of Frequency TablesAppendices Appendix A Reporting Your Research ResultsAppendix B Statistical TablesAppendix C Introduction to Meta-Analysis 2. FULL TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1: Behavioral Research and the Scientific Method Preview QuestionsWhy Study Research Methods and Data Analysis?What Alternatives Are There to the Scientific Method?How Do Scientists Use Empirical Reasoning?How Is Empirical Reasoning Used in Behavioral Research?How Do Extraempirical Factors Come Into Play?What Does Behavioral Science Cover?How Does Research Go From Descriptive to Relational to Experimental?What Are the Characteristics of Good Researchers?Summary of IdeasKey TermsMultiple-Choice Questions for ReviewDiscussion Questions for ReviewAnswers to Review QuestionsChapter 2: From Hunches to Testable Hypotheses Preview QuestionsWhat Is Meant by a Cycle of Discovery and Justification?What Are Hypothesis-Generating Heuristics?What Is the Potential Role of SerendipityHow Can I Do a LiteratureSearch?How Should I Go About Defining Variables?What Identifies “Good” Theories and Working Hypotheses?What Is the Distinction Between an Independent Variable and Dependent Variable?What Belongs in My Research Proposal?Summary of IdeasKey TermsMultiple-Choice Questions for ReviewDiscussion Questions for ReviewAnswers to Review QuestionsChapter 3: Ethical Considerations and Guidelines Preview QuestionsHow Do Ethical Guidelines in Research Function?What Is Informed Consent, and When Is It Used?How Are Ethics Reviews Done and Acted On?What Are Obstacles to the Rendering of “Full Justice”?How Can a “Relationship of Trust” Be Established?How Do Scientific Quality and Ethical Quality Intertwine?Is Deception in Research Ever Justified?What Is the Purpose of Debriefing, and How Is It Done?How Is Animal Research Governed by Ethical Rules?What Ethical Responsibilities Are There When Writing Up Research?Summary of IdeasKey TermsMultiple-Choice Questions for ReviewDiscussion Questions for ReviewAnswers to Review QuestionsChapter 4: Methods of Systematic Observation Preview QuestionsWhat Is Meant by Systematic Observation?How Do Researchers Simultaneously Participate and Observe?What Can Be Learned from Quantifying Observations?How Are Judgment Studies Done?How Does Content Analysis Work?How Are Situations Simulated in Controlled Settings?What Are Plausible Rival Hypotheses and the Third-Variable Problem?What Is the Distinction Between Reactive and Nonreactive Observation?Summary of IdeasKey TermsMultiple-Choice Questions for ReviewDiscussion Questions for ReviewAnswers to Review QuestionsChapter 5: Methods for Looking Within Ourselves Preview QuestionsWhat Are the Uses and Limitations of Self-Report Measures?What Are Open-Ended and Fixed-Choice Items?How Are Personality and Projective Tests Used?What Is Meant By Measuring Implicit Attitudes?What Are Numerical, Forced-Choice, and Graphic Ratings?What Are Rating Errors, and How Are They Controlled?What Is the Semantic Differential Method?What Are Likert Scales and Thurstone Scales?How Are Items Prepared for a Questionnaire or an Interview?How Are Face-to-Face and Telephone Interviews Done?How Are Behavioral Diaries Used in Research?Summary of IdeasKey TermsMultiple-Choice Questions for ReviewDiscussion Questions for ReviewAnswers to Review QuestionsChapter 6: Reliability and Validity in Measurement and Research Preview QuestionsWhat Is the Difference Between Validity and Reliability?What Are Random and Systematic Errors?What Is the Purpose of Retest and Alternate-Form Reliability?What Is Internal-Consistency Reliability, and How Is It Increased?What Is Acceptable Test-Retest and Internal-Consistency Reliability?How Is the Reliability of Judges Measured?How Is Reliability Related to Replication and External Validity?How Are Content and Criterion Validity Defined?How Is Construct Validity Assessed in Test Development?How Is Construct Validity Relevant to Experimental Design?What Is the Importance of Statistical-Conclusion Validity and Internal Validity?Summary of IdeasKey TermsMultiple-Choice Questions for ReviewDiscussion Questions for ReviewAnswers to Review QuestionsChapter 7: Randomized Experiments and Causal Inference Preview QuestionsWhat Is the Purpose of Randomized Experiments?How Is Random Assignment Accomplished?What Are Between-Subjects Designs?What Is the Formative Logic of Experimental ControlWhat Are Within-Subjects Designs?What Are Factorial Designs?What Is Meant by Counterbalancing the Conditions?Why Is Causality Said To Be “Shrouded in Mystery”?How Do Scientists Logically Puzzle Out Efficient Causality?What Conditions Pose a Threat to Internal Validity?What Are Artifacts in Research?Summary of IdeasKey TermsMultiple-Choice Questions for ReviewDiscussion Questions for ReviewAnswers to Review QuestionsChapter 8: Nonrandomized Research and Causal Reasoning Preview QuestionsHow Is Causal Reasoning Attempted in the Absence of Randomization?How Is the Third-Variable Problem Relevant?What Is Meant By Subclassification on Propensity Scores?What Are Time-Series Designs and “Found Experiments”?What Within-Subjects Designs Are Used in Single-Case Experiments?How Are Correlations Interpreted in Cross-Lagged Panel Designs?What Is the Purpose of Longitudinal Research Using Cohorts?Summary of IdeasKey TermsMultiple-Choice Questions for ReviewDiscussion Questions for ReviewAnswers to Review QuestionsChapter 9: Survey Research and Subject Recruitment Preview QuestionsWhat Are Opportunity and Probability Samples?What Is Meant by Bias and Instability in Survey Research?Why Do We Not Know “For Sure” the Bias in Sampling?How Is Simple Random Sampling Done?What Are Stratified Random Sampling and Area Probability Sampling?What Did the Literary Digest Case Teach Pollsters?What Are Point Estimates and Interval Estimates?What Are the Benefits of Stratification?How Is Nonresponse Bias Handled in Survey Research?What Are the Typical Characteristics of Volunteer Subjects?How Is Volunteer Bias in Opportunity Samples Managed?Summary of IdeasKey TermsMultiple-Choice Questions for ReviewDiscussion Questions for ReviewAnswers to Review QuestionsChapter 10: Summarizing the Data Preview QuestionsHow Is Visual Integrity Ensured When Results Are Graphed?How Are Frequencies Displayed in Tables, Bar Graphs, and Line Graphs?How Do Stem-and-Leaf Charts Work?How Are Percentiles Used to Summarize Part of a Batch?How Is an Exploratory Data Analysis Done?How Does Asymmetry Affect Measures of Central Tendency?How Do I Measure How “Spread Out” a Set of Scores Is?What Are Descriptive and Inferential Measures?How Do I Estimate a Confidence Interval Around a Population Mean?What Is Distinctive About the Normal Distribution?Why Are z Scores Called Standard Scores, and How Are They Used?Summary of IdeasKey TermsMultiple-Choice Questions for ReviewDiscussion Questions for ReviewAnswers to Review QuestionsChapter 11: Correlating Variables Preview QuestionsWhat Are Different Forms of Correlations?How Are Correlations Visualized in Scatter Plots?How Is a Product-Moment Correlation Calculated?How Is Dummy Coding Used in Correlation?When Is the Phi Coefficient Used?How Is a Correlation Calculated on Ranks?Summary of IdeasKey TermsMultiple-Choice Questions for ReviewDiscussion Questions for ReviewAnswers to Review QuestionsChapter 12: Understanding p Values and Effect Size Indicators Preview QuestionsWhy Is It Important to Focus Not Just on p Values?What Is the Reasoning Behind Null Hypothesis Significance Testing?What Is the Distinction Between Type I and Type II Error?What Are One-Tailed and Two-Tailed p Values?What Is the Counternull Statistic?What Is the Purpose of Doing a Power Analysis?How Do I Estimate a Confidence Interval for an Effect Size Correlation?What Can Effect Sizes Tell Us of Practical Importance?What Does Killeen’s prep Tell Me?Summary of IdeasKey TermsMultiple-Choice Questions for ReviewDiscussion Questions for ReviewAnswers to Review QuestionsChapter 13: The Comparison of Two Conditions Preview QuestionsWhat Do Signal-to-Noise Ratios Have to Do With t Tests?How Do I Compute an Independent-Sample t Test?What Can a Table of p Values for t Teach Me?What Is an Effect Size Index for an Independent-Sample t?How Do I Interpret Cohen’s d for Independent Groups?How Do I Compute Interval Estimates for Cohen’s d?How Can I Maximize the Independent-Sample t?How Does a Paired t Test Differ From an Independent-Sample t Test?What Is an Effect Size Index for a Paired t?Summary of IdeasKey TermsMultiple-Choice Questions for ReviewDiscussion Questions for ReviewAnswers to Review QuestionsChapter 14: Comparisons of More Than Two Conditions Preview QuestionsWhat Is Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), and How Are F and t Related?How Is Variability Apportioned in a One-Way ANOVA?How Are ANOVA Summary Tables Set Up and Interpreted?How Can I Test for Simple Effects After an Omnibus F?How Is Variability Apportioned in a Two-Way ANOVA?How Do I Interpret Main and Interaction Effects?How Is a Two-Way ANOVA Computed and a Summary Table Set Up?What Are Contrasts, and How Do I Compute Them On More Than Two Groups?What Do reffect size r alerting and rcontrast Tell Me?How Are Contrasts on Multiple Repeated Measures Computed?How Are Latin Square Designs Analyzed?Summary of IdeasKey TermsMultiple-Choice Questions for ReviewDiscussion Questions for ReviewAnswers to Review QuestionsChapter 15: The Analysis of Frequency Tables Preview QuestionsWhat Is the Purpose of Chi-Square (X2)?How Do I Compute 1-df Chi-Squares?How Do I Obtain the p Value, Effect Size, and Confidence Interval?What Is the Relationship Between 1df X 2 and Phi?How Do I Deal With Tables Larger Than 2X2?How Is Standardizing the Margins Done, and What Can It Tell Me?What Is a Binomial Effect-Size Display Used For?A Journey BegunSummary of IdeasKey TermsMultiple-Choice Questions for ReviewDiscussion Questions for ReviewAnswers to Review QuestionsAppendix A Reporting Your Research Results Research Reports in APA StyleGetting StartedTitle PageAbstractIntroductionMethodResultsDiscussionReferencesFootnotesTables and FiguresAppendixWriting and RevisingAppendix B Statistical Tables B.1. z Values and Their Associated One-Tailed p ValuesB.2. t Values and Their Associated One-Tailed and Two-Tailed p ValuesB.3. F Values and Their Associated p ValuesB.4. r2 Values and Their Associated p ValuesB.5. r Values and Their Associated p ValuesB.6. Transformations of r to Fisher zrB.7. Transformations of Fisher zr to rAppendix C Introduction to Meta-Analysis The Purpose of Meta-AnalysisSome Pro and Con ArgumentsComparing Two Effect SizesCombining Two Effect SizesObtaining an Overall Significance LevelDetective-Like Probing of Reported DataThe File Drawer ProblemGlossary of Terms References Name Index Subject Index