External Validity: Questions And Answers
1. What is external validity?
a. External validity is the extent to which findings may be generalized. (Page 292)
2. Why should a researcher be concerned about generalizing to other populations?
a. Researchers should be concerned about generalizing to other populations, because if their research is not generalizable then their findings will be limited to only one population and will not have a far-reaching effect. (Page 292)
3. How can the fact that most studies are conducted with college students, volunteers, and individuals from a limited location and culture potentially impact external validity?
a. The fact that most studies are conducted with college students, volunteers, and individuals from a limited location and culture may limit the …show more content…
external validity of a study because there are researched differences between people in these categories when compared to those outside these categories. For example, college students are more conservative than other adults, and volunteers tend to be more highly educated than non-volunteers. (Pages 292-293)
4.
How does the use of the Internet to recruit subjects and collect data impact external validity?
a. Using the internet to recruit subjects can limit the external validity of a study because there are demographic characteristics correlated with spending more time online, and thus the results of online surveys may not generalize very well to the population of interest. (Pages 293-294)
5. What is the source of the problem of generalizing to other experimenters? How can this problem be solved?
a. The source of the problem of generalizing to other experimenters is that characteristics of an experimenter, such as personality and gender may influence the participant. Thus their behavior will change in the presence of a different experimenter with different characteristics. (Page 297)
b. One solution to the problem of generalizing to other experimenters is to use two or more experimenters. (page 297)
6. Why is it important to pretest a problem for generalization? Discuss the reasons why including a pretest may affect the ability to generalize results.
a. It is important to pretest a problem for generalization so that you can determine whether the people who withdrew after the pretest are different from those who completed the study. (page
298)
b. Simply taking a pretest may cause subjects to behave differently than they would without the pretest. Thus, pretesting may limit the ability to generalize to populations that did not receive a pretest. (Page 298)
7. Distinguish between an exact replication and a conceptual replication. What is the value of a conceptual replication?
a. An exact replication is an attempt to replicate precisely the procedures of a study to see whether the same results are obtained. In conceptual replication researchers also seeks to replicate research findings, but they use different procedures for manipulating or measuring the variables. (Page 302)
b. Conceptual replications are valuable because they allow us to know whether a relationship holds when other ways of manipulating or measuring the variables are studied. (Page 302)
8. What is a meta-analysis?
a. A meta-analysis is a set of statistical procedures for combining the results of a number of studies in order to provide a general assessment of the relationship between variables. (Page 303)
a. External validity is the extent to which findings may be generalized. (Page 292)
2. Why should a researcher be concerned about generalizing to other populations?
a. Researchers should be concerned about generalizing to other populations, because if their research is not generalizable then their findings will be limited to only one population and will not have a far-reaching effect. (Page 292)
3. How can the fact that most studies are conducted with college students, volunteers, and individuals from a limited location and culture potentially impact external validity?
a. The fact that most studies are conducted with college students, volunteers, and individuals from a limited location and culture may limit the …show more content…
external validity of a study because there are researched differences between people in these categories when compared to those outside these categories. For example, college students are more conservative than other adults, and volunteers tend to be more highly educated than non-volunteers. (Pages 292-293)
4.
How does the use of the Internet to recruit subjects and collect data impact external validity?
a. Using the internet to recruit subjects can limit the external validity of a study because there are demographic characteristics correlated with spending more time online, and thus the results of online surveys may not generalize very well to the population of interest. (Pages 293-294)
5. What is the source of the problem of generalizing to other experimenters? How can this problem be solved?
a. The source of the problem of generalizing to other experimenters is that characteristics of an experimenter, such as personality and gender may influence the participant. Thus their behavior will change in the presence of a different experimenter with different characteristics. (Page 297)
b. One solution to the problem of generalizing to other experimenters is to use two or more experimenters. (page 297)
6. Why is it important to pretest a problem for generalization? Discuss the reasons why including a pretest may affect the ability to generalize results.
a. It is important to pretest a problem for generalization so that you can determine whether the people who withdrew after the pretest are different from those who completed the study. (page
298)
b. Simply taking a pretest may cause subjects to behave differently than they would without the pretest. Thus, pretesting may limit the ability to generalize to populations that did not receive a pretest. (Page 298)
7. Distinguish between an exact replication and a conceptual replication. What is the value of a conceptual replication?
a. An exact replication is an attempt to replicate precisely the procedures of a study to see whether the same results are obtained. In conceptual replication researchers also seeks to replicate research findings, but they use different procedures for manipulating or measuring the variables. (Page 302)
b. Conceptual replications are valuable because they allow us to know whether a relationship holds when other ways of manipulating or measuring the variables are studied. (Page 302)
8. What is a meta-analysis?
a. A meta-analysis is a set of statistical procedures for combining the results of a number of studies in order to provide a general assessment of the relationship between variables. (Page 303)