PSYC 201W Chapter Notes - Chapter 10: Normal Distribution, Measuring Instrument, Randomized Controlled Trial
12 Mar 2019
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Critical thinking at each juncture often centers on issues of valid inference. Concerns about valid inference also go to heart of evaluating claims encountered in everyday life. Concerns about validity apply to diff kinds of inferences scientists make. Validity applies to inferences about studies & findings, not to findings/studies themselves. Robert tryon - initiated famous, decade-long selective breeding project in 1927. Goal - to demonstrate experimentally that indiv differences in psychological qualities such as learning ability, had hereditary basis. Research helped establish new field of study & subsequently named behaviour genetics. Did not claim in research reports that he was examining genetic basis of intelligence. Concluded that bright & dull rats differed in cognitive ability as function of their experimentally controlled heredity. Applies to both measuring & manipulating variables. Concerns issue of whether constructs researchers claim to be study are constructs they truly are manipulating & measuring.
