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Matching Quiz I
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Presented here are five brief descriptions of observational research. Read each description carefully. Then, identify the type of observational study used by choosing the appropriate letter from Column A. Next, look over the concepts in Column B. Identify the concepts that are illustrated in the research description. Place the appropriate letters from Column B beneath the research description. Letters from both Columns A and B may be used one time, more than one time, or not at all.

Column AColumn B
a. naturalistic observationa. time sampling
b. participant observationb. situation sampling
c. structured observationc. coding
d. field experimentd. reactivity
e. confederate
f. narrative records
g. interobserver reliability
h. demand characteristics
i. observer bias (expectancy)
j. unobtrusive measure

1


Sally is interested in the behavior of field mice. She decides to observe their behavior from a distance using a powerful telescope. There are four fields near the university she attends that contain colonies of mice. She observes the mice in the four different fields according to a schedule that she makes up. On each observation day, six 15-minute periods during the day are randomly selected from the times when the daylight is sufficient to permit her to see the mice. She writes descriptions of many activities of the mice. Later, she organizes the behavioral descriptions according to well-defined categories of behavior.
2


Luther wants to find out whether college students are influenced by how someone dresses. To do so, he tells one of his male friends his hypotheses and asks him to approach students on campus and ask for directions to a well-known restaurant located on the other side of the city. Luther asks his friend to be well dressed and neat in appearance when approaching some students and to dress in old, dirty clothes, looking as though he has not washed in a week, when approaching other students. Otherwise, the friend is to make the request in exactly the same way to all students. Every 20th student exiting the library on Monday and Wednesday is approached by the neat dresser, and on Tuesday and Thursday by the shabby dresser. The friend reports to Luther how many people were willing to give directions when he approached them in the two different types of dress.
3


Students in an introductory psychology class are assigned to observe at a busy intersection and to record whether or not cars enter the intersection when the light has changed to red, and if so, to record whether the car is high-priced, moderate-priced, or low-priced. Students observe in pairs from the window of a second-story office in a building near the intersection. The data from the pairs of observers are later compared.
4


A psychologist investigates the response of 20 different 4-year-old boys when separated from their mothers. A mother and child are brought into a large playroom. The child is allowed to play by himself for 10 minutes. At that time, the mother is signaled by the psychologist to get up and leave the room. The psychologist observes the child through a one-way mirror, recording everything the child does for the next 5 minutes.
5


Mary is an educational psychologist studying classroom behavior. She sets up a study to observe boys and girls during their regular class periods at school. She is interested in whether boys and girls differ in their "out of seat" behavior in the classroom. Because she expects boys to be out of their seats more often than girls, she observes from a position in the front of the classroom where she can see the most boys clearly. She observes the children’s behavior while she reads a story and discreetly records whether boys and girls get out of their seats.
Answer choices for questions 1 through 5
A)Column A: a Column B: a, b, c, f, j
B)Column A: a Column B: g, j
C)Column A: c Column B: f, j
D)Column A: b Column B: d, i
E)Column A: d Column B: a, e, i





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