2011 VN'ers Psychology U3 Questions Thread

[iNerd]

I would have gone with D also...

[Zafaraaaa]

Sorryy I ask too many questions :S LOL, but can someone can please help I found some parts of this question a bit difficult.. thanks =]

Richard wished to compare the mood of Year 6 children after they had role-played being a victim of bullying (Condition 1) with their mood after they had role-played helping an injured person (Condition 2). He decided to measure mood on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being ‘depressed’ and 10 being ‘elated’. He obtained the figure by giving a 40- item ‘mood test’ from the Internet. He took his measurements with the first 30 children on the school’s alphabetical roll. The role-plays took place on Monday afternoons, one week apart. He made sure that half the children role-played Condition 1 the first week and Condition 2 the second, with the other half role-playing the conditions in the opposite sequence. Richard’s results showed that the mean mood score for Condition 1 was 3.4 and the mean mood score for Condition 2 was 7.2. This difference was statistically significant.

a) Was Richard’s sampling procedure appropriate? Explain your answer.
d) How was the dependent variable operationalised?
e) State an appropriate experimental hypothesis for this research.
g) Would it be appropriate for Richard to generalise his conclusions to all Year 6 students in the school? Explain your answer.

[iNerd]

a) Sample is biased - no attempt to make it representative of the population.

d) It was operationalised by making mood represented by a scale of 1-10 where 1 represented being 'depressed' and 10 being 'elated'

e) That Year 6 children who are exposed to Condition 1 first will have a lower mean score on the mood test than those Year 6 children exposed to Condition 2 first.

g) Would not be appropriate as the sample is biased and not representative of the population EVEN THOUGH it is statistically significant.

[Zafaraaaa]

Thank you!

[totaled]

Oooh okayy thanks =]

Although this multiple choice Question confused me a bit:

A psychologist conducted an experiment to investigate the impact of gender on readiness to help others.  His target population was a first year Psychology class comprising twenty male and ten female students.  The psychologist randomly selected a sample from the target population comprising four males and two females to take part in the experiment.

This method of subject selection is called
A.   stratified sampling.
B.   random sampling.
C.   participant allocation.
D.   stratified random sampling.

[I thought it was D, but it turned out to be A :S Can someone pleasee explain why??]

Thanks in advancee

aha i'm pretty sure you're correct
the distinction between stratified random and stratified isnt so clear cut, so i wouldn't worry about it if i were you

[iNerd]

A researcher wants to investigate the effects on aggressive behaviour of observing violence on television. The researcher is specifically interested in the effects on young children who watch violent scenes in cartoons during after-school viewing hours.

Q: Identify and explain which of the three designs would be most appropriate and which would be least appropriate for this experiment.

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Give an example of an observational study in which artificiality and demand characteristics may be potential extraneous or confounding variables.

[totaled]

A researcher wants to investigate the effects on aggressive behaviour of observing violence on television. The researcher is specifically interested in the effects on young children who watch violent scenes in cartoons during after-school viewing hours.

Q: Identify and explain which of the three designs would be most appropriate and which would be least appropriate for this experiment.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Give an example of an observational study in which artificiality and demand characteristics may be potential extraneous or confounding variables.

matched participants

i.e. independant groups: different in violence levels could be a extraneous/confounding variable (independant groups is rarely your best choice anyway)
repeated measures: it would be difficult i think in this sort of experiment to use this design

[iNerd]

Question 8
A researcher wished to investigate which parts of the brain are used when a person is shown a series of words that are flashed on a screen for one second each. The most effective instruments to use for this research would be
A. EEG or fMRI
B. PET-scan or MRI
C. CT-scan or fMRI
D. MRI or CT-scan

I put C as the instruments combined show both structure and function...

[iNerd]

Question 8
A researcher wished to investigate which parts of the brain are used when a person is shown a series of words that are flashed on a screen for one second each. The most effective instruments to use for this research would be
A. EEG or fMRI
B. PET-scan or MRI
C. CT-scan or fMRI
D. MRI or CT-scan

I put C as the instruments combined show both structure and function...

I think you misinterpreted what the question was looking for (which is important!)
it primarily wants the 'most effective' instruments in this experiment, so just function
so A is the correct answer

Uh I don't follow.

..."investigate which parts of the brain are used..."

It doesn't say which parts of the brain are ACTIVE (to indicate function)..but gives a generic slab (which 'parts') indicating to me both structure (so what part - frontal lobe etc) and function (which part).

[Darren]

Would someone care to nicely provide a brief summary of sleep times required for each stage of the lifespan; eg. infants; adults; teenagers; elderly (whatever you know).
Also can anyone out there provide an accurate summary of time spent in REM for these lifespan stages? Thanks.
I'm trying to collate the best notes possible and I'm missing this information as I've gotten conflicting information which I really don't want to take my chances with.

Also this question derailed me slightly; 'What has research into the biological rhythm of sleep suggested about the sleep/wake cycle of human beings?' Not really specific.. what would you write?

[burbs]

Infants - 50% REM

New Borns sleep 16-17 hrs
6 Months sleep 12-14
1 yo 12-13

Children
3-5 years sleep 10-12 hrs
20-25% REM
Experience more stage 3&4
10 yo 8-10 hrs

Adolescence
9-10 hours
move to Adults typically 21 for males, 19.5 for females) who need 8hrs sleep a night (20% REM)

Elderly get 6-7 hours but may not need less. just get less

[werdna]

17 year olds need 9 to 10 hours sleep?! Damnn no wonder I've been really tired lately LOL

[totaled]

Would someone care to nicely provide a brief summary of sleep times required for each stage of the lifespan; eg. infants; adults; teenagers; elderly (whatever you know).
Also can anyone out there provide an accurate summary of time spent in REM for these lifespan stages? Thanks.
I'm trying to collate the best notes possible and I'm missing this information as I've gotten conflicting information which I really don't want to take my chances with.

Also this question derailed me slightly; 'What has research into the biological rhythm of sleep suggested about the sleep/wake cycle of human beings?' Not really specific.. what would you write?

I would answer it as, sleep studies have shown that the biological 'clock' in our body indicate that the sleep/wake cycle actually runs on a 25-hour clock, rather than a 24-hour clock, so if we weren't aware of the time, our sleep-wake cycle would slowly adjust by an hour everyday

[pi]

17 year olds need 9 to 10 hours sleep?! Damnn no wonder I've been really tired lately LOL

I'm lucky to get 8!

[Darren]

Would someone care to nicely provide a brief summary of sleep times required for each stage of the lifespan; eg. infants; adults; teenagers; elderly (whatever you know).
Also can anyone out there provide an accurate summary of time spent in REM for these lifespan stages? Thanks.
I'm trying to collate the best notes possible and I'm missing this information as I've gotten conflicting information which I really don't want to take my chances with.

Also this question derailed me slightly; 'What has research into the biological rhythm of sleep suggested about the sleep/wake cycle of human beings?' Not really specific.. what would you write?

I would answer it as, sleep studies have shown that the biological 'clock' in our body indicate that the sleep/wake cycle actually runs on a 25-hour clock, rather than a 24-hour clock, so if we weren't aware of the time, our sleep-wake cycle would slowly adjust by an hour everyday

Thanks. Where did you get this information? Our textbook is pretty lame (grivas) My teacher says it's pretty bad with the new stuff