Chapter 10: Research Design Explained

  1. You are now at the Chapter 10 section of the book's student Web site. Here you can
    1. Look over the concept map of the key terms and look at a glossary of the key terms.
    2. Test yourself on the chapter objectives
    3. Test yourself on the key terms.

    4. Take the Practice Quiz. (a short, general quiz over the entire chapter).
      • Take 15-item quizzes over the first part of the chapter.
      • Take 11-item quizzes over the second part of the chapter.
      • Take 4-item quizzes over the third part of the chapter.
      • Take 9-item quizzes over the fourth part of the chapter.
      • Take 10-item quizzes over the fifth part of the chapter.
    5. Do the interactive end-of-chapter exercises.
    6. Review by looking at the key issues and reading the chapter summary. You may also look at these very short reviews the basics of significance testing and the basics of the t test.

  2. Do a t test using a statistical calculator or get a better understanding of the t test by going through this short, colorful tutorial (Under the graph, you will see a "Population 1" heading and a "Population 2" heading. We would have labeled these columns "Sample 1" and "Sample 2". Use the arrow buttons to change the mean, variance, and "population" [sample] size. If you are having trouble thinking of values, click on the tutorial's "Parameters" tab at the left of the screen. After you are done playing with values, click on the tutorial's "Simulation" tab to see if your conclusions about the impact of difference between means, variance, and sample size are correct.)

    You may also want to explore the chi-square test, a statistical test that is especially useful when participants responses are type of response (e.g., helped or did not help; chose either red, green, or blue) with the following tutorials.

    Tutorial 1 (more general)
    Tutorial 2 (more detailed)
  3. Find out how to conduct a field experiment by reading "Web Appendix: Field experiments."

  4. Get a better idea of the steps involved in conducting a study by reading "Web Appendix: Conducting a Study."

  5. If you want to write up your method section, you may wish to download one of the following programs.

  6. If you want to write up the results of a simple experiment, you may wish to look at these tips
    or download one of the following tutorials.
  7. Get a better understanding of  random assignment by going through this short (it shouldn't take you more than 10 minutes) but useful tutorial.

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