Behavioral Research and Experiment Design (CG3.

402)

Monsoon 2024

Quiz 2 (Total Marks - 20)

General Instructions
● Read all instructions and questions carefully before answering.
● Important: If your answer involves assumptions, be sure to clarify them for a complete
understanding of your answer.
● If you perceive a question as confusing or open to interpretation, you're allowed to make
reasonable assumptions; please specify these in your answer.
● There can be multiple options correct for MCQs, where the marking will be done as
follows:
○ Any wrong option marked - 0 marks
○ All correct options marked - 1 marks
○ Any other permutation combination - 0 marks

Section A [6*1 Mark each = 6 Marks]

1. Which of the following is true regarding the Central Limit Theorem (CLT)?
a. It only applies to normal population distributions
b. The sampling distribution of the mean will follow a normal distribution as sample
size increases
c. CLT applies only to small sample sizes
d. The sample variance always equals the population variance under CLT

2. What sort of skew is present in a distribution that has the following characteristics?
Mean = 50, Median = 60 and Mode = 70
a. Negative Skew
b. Positive Skew
c. Normal / No Skew.

3. Which of the following hypotheses permit two-tailed tests?

a. Diabetics are more health-conscious than other people
b. Extroverts and introverts differ in their ability to learn people’s names
c. Job satisfaction correlates negatively with absenteeism
d. Self-esteem correlates with outward confidence

4. Which of the following experiments can be conducted online without being affected by
hardware and software constraints in web-based experiments and design?
a. Stroop Task: Measures the time it takes for participants to correctly identify the
colour of a word while ignoring the word’s meaning
b. Survey: Measure the big five personality traits: Openness to Experience,
Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism
 c. Dot Motion Coherence Task: Measures participants’ ability to detect coherent
motion in a visual field containing both randomly moving dots and dots moving in
a specific direction
d. Word List Memory Task: Measures participants’ short-term memory and
recognition ability by presenting them with a list of words and later testing their
ability to recall or recognise them

5. Which of the following statement(s) is/are true concerning interquartile ranges (IQR)?
a. Provides information about the spread of the central portion of the data
b. Provides information on the typical distance of data points from the mean
c. It is not affected by outliers or extreme values
d. It is affected by outliers or extreme values

6. In experience sampling, what factors contribute to minimising recall biases?

a. Immediate real-time data collection instead of retrospective reporting
b. Regular and random sampling of experiences throughout the day
c. Prompting participants to report only at the end of the day
d. Using technology to passively capture data without participant input

Section B [4*2 Marks each = 8 Marks]

You’re required to answer any four of the given five questions. If more than four questions
are answered, then only the first four will be considered for evaluation.

1. Can you identify a principle for distinguishing legitimate from illegitimate instances of
data omission? That is, when is it acceptable to ignore a specific observation?
2. Describe two opportunities of scientific misconduct which arise as symptoms of the
structure of science along with an example.
3. What does it mean to standardise a normal distribution and how would you go about
doing it? What advantages does the process of standardisation allow for?
4. A data set has a set of seven scores of which one score is 0.8. The standard deviation
for the set is 0. Can you give the mean of the set and say anything else about the six
other scores in the set?
5. The following values represent the scores of students in a test (out of 10)

Marks in a test (out of 10)

Marks Number of students with that score

0 3

1 6

2 10

3 5
 4 4

5 3

6 2

7 4

8 8

9 5

10 3

Draw a histogram representative of the above data and talk about the skew
characteristics of the distribution.

Section C [2*3 Marks each = 6 Marks]

You’re required to answer any two of the given three questions. If more than two questions
are answered, then only the first two will be considered for evaluation.

1. You have time travelled back to the dreaded times of COVID19 (for some reason) and
you are required to conduct an experiment. However, due to the entire world being under
lockdown, you are forced to conduct your experiments online. Define and label three
hardware and software constraints you would have to keep in mind so that your data is
not confounded.
2. What are the three different flows of research? Describe, within each, a possibility where
ethical issues might arise.
3. In 1939, Wendell Johnson, a speech pathologist at the University of Iowa, and his
graduate student Mary Tudor conducted a controversial experiment now known as the
"Monster Study." The research involved 22 orphaned children, with the aim of
investigating whether stuttering is an inherent trait or a learned behaviour. The children
were divided into two groups—one receiving positive feedback for fluent speech, while
the other group was subjected to negative feedback, with some children being falsely
labelled as stutterers. This manipulation caused some of the non-stuttering children to
develop speech impediments, and they suffered emotional trauma as a result. Johnson
and Tudor justified their actions by claiming that the study would contribute valuable
insights into the causes of stuttering and that there was no physical harm, but the
experiment has since been heavily criticised for its unethical treatment of vulnerable
subjects. The "Monster Study" remains a stark reminder of the importance of ethics in
behavioural research.

Based on the context of the 1939 'Monster Study' conducted by Wendell Johnson and
Mary Tudor, explain the design of the experiment, specifying the independent and
dependent variables, as well as the methodology used to manipulate the children's
speech behaviour. Additionally, discuss the ethical implications of this study, particularly
in relation to the treatment of the participants and the long-term effects of the
manipulation.