Experimental Psychology

Research in Experimental Psychology

PSY-322-OL

July 2012

Article 1: "Individual Differences in Two-year-olds' Curiosity in the Assessment Setting and in the Grocery Store'

Read the title and abstract of this article. Then answer these questions.

1.What is the area of study? The area of study is individual differences in 2 year olds.

2.What is already known about this topic? What is known about this topic is that all children having different learning curves and think differently.

3.What is the experiment and what is expected to be learned? Children are placed and certain situations and their differences are measured.

4.What are the variables? The variables in this study will be the settings the children are placed in

Read the full article and answer these questions.

1. Which of the psychological experiment tools did these researchers use? The tools of psychological science they used were experimentation. Experimentation is a process used to test a hypothesis.

2. What conclusion was reached by the research report? The results of the study suggested that differences were noted in the children.

3.What cautions/future research was identified? The caution of this article is not all children respond at the same rate.

Article 2: "Online Education: A Study of Academic Rigor and Integrity"

Read the article and answer these questions.

1.What is the area of study? Online and offline courses are compared in terms of rigor.

2.What is already known about this topic? Online or distance learning is harder than offline or traditional classroom learning.

3.What is the hypothesis? The hypothesis is grade inflation and related issues when comparing online and offline courses.

4.How was the data collected? Online/offline data of the same course was collected for two academic years, the same course had the same instructor, textbook, and the same time period. The difference is that the offline had lectures and the online had videos. The total N was 473 students. The dependent variable was attaining a passing grade or attrition/failure. Thus, did the two different delivery systems have significant difference in terms of those who succeed or fail/withdraw? A two by two table was constructed comparing online and offline students with "success "(earning a passing A-D grade) and "failure" (F or Withdrawl.) The chi-square value was 40.28. This is significant well beyond the .001 confidence level. In terms of the raw data, online students were roughly the same with more failures than successes. However, in the offline group, students were over represented in the success group.