1
1. HOMEWORK List a belief that you hold to be true. Determine how you know this belief to be true. Use the labels for
ways of knowing that we discussed in class.
2. For each of the following, indicate whether a variable or a constant is being described:
a. The number of ounces in a gallon
b. The depression you feel when stats class is over
c. The number of students enrolled in PSYC200
d. The amount of coffee you drink each morning
e. The number of tweets you make in an hour
f. The number of seconds in a minute
3. For each of the following, indicate whether a continuous or a discrete variable is being described:
a. The number of students in stats class
b. A persons weight
c. The number of people who own Starbucks gold cards
d. A womans pregnancy status
e. An eyewitnesses choice in a lineup
f. A persons SAT score
4. You are at a dinner party and someone is complaining about the fact that Casey Anthony was not found guilty
for the death of her child. The party guest states that Casey was not found guilty because she was a woman and
that women are more likely than men to be found not guilty in court due to lingering patriarchal views towards
women. Since you are becoming an accomplished scientist, you decide to investigate this claim. You get 250
undergraduates from the University of Maryland to act as mock jurors. One hundred and twenty five of these
people evaluate the trail of a woman defendant, and the other 125 evaluate the trial of a male defendant. Both
the female and male defendants provide the same trial responses. You record the final verdicts of the jurors
and find that 75% of the jurors voted to convict the female defendant and 28% of the jurors voted to convict
the male defendant.
a. Is this an experiment? Why or why not? If this is not an experiment, please classify this what is called.
b. Identify the hypothesis under evaluation.
c. Identify the population in question.
d. Identify the sample in question.
e. List two sampling methods.
f. Describe how the researcher may have used each sampling method for this example.
g. What does having a biased sample mean?
h. Is the current sample biased? If so, how?
i. What is the best sampling method? Why?
j. Identify and classify (independent or predictor vs. dependent or criterion) the variables of interest. .
k. Is there a statistic(s) used in this example. If so, identify the statistic(s) in this example.
l. Are there any parameters in this example? If so, identify the parameter(s) in this example.
m. Does it appear that your dinner guest was correct? Why or why not?
5. You have observed and recorded the frequency judgments of 9 people in your class of how often they check
facebook each week during the school year (X) and during the summer (Y).
______X__________Y_____
32
58
38
60
79
67
33
52
23
51
25
43
26
25
Perform the following mathematical operations on the above dataset:
N
a.
X
i
i= 1
b.
N
(3Y ) + 1
i
i= 1
c.
N
X
2
i
i= 1
d.
N
( X Y )
2
ii
i= 1
5
e.
( X Y )
2
ii
i= 1
6. Imagine that you are interested in studying the impact of meditation on speech performance. For each design
specified, indicate whether you are dealing with independent variables, dependent variables, predictor
variables, or criterion variables. For the types of variables present in your design, indicate which variable
corresponds to which classification (i.e., discrete or continuous). Additionally, specify a population of interest
and specify a sample you might procure.
a. Design an experimental design that targets this question.
b. Design a non-experimental design that targets this question.