Chapter 7: Research Design Explained

1. You are now at the Chapter 7 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.
      • Quick matching test
      • Download a more challenging matching test (requires Windows)

   4. Take the Practice Quiz (a short, general quiz over the entire chapter).
      • Take six-item quizzes over the first part of the chapter.
        • Quiz A
        • Quiz B
      • Take seven-item quizzes over the second part of the chapter.
        • Quiz A
        • Quiz B
      • Take 12-item quizzes over the third part of the chapter.
        • Quiz A
        • Quiz B
      • Take 14-item quizzes over the four part of the chapter.
        • Quiz A
        • Quiz B

   5. Review by looking at the key issues and reading the chapter summary.
2. Participate in a descriptive study: Get a better sense of what descriptive research is like by participating in research that uses a descriptive method.
3. Learn more about descriptive research by going through this tutorial.
4. Become more comfortable with correlations by
   1. Using this tool to interpret positive, negative, and zero correlations.
   2. Going through the correlator tutorial
      • Download Windows version
      • Download Macintosh version
   3. Computing correlation coefficients using our correlation calculator or using another statistical calculator.
   4. This interactive demo helps you visualize what different correlations mean.
   5. Games that will help you learn how to estimate a correlation coefficient from a graph.
      • Game 1 .
      • Game 2 (only does positive correlations)
5. Review the coefficient of determination.
6. To do some archival research on the web, explore the following links.
   • Voting data
   • U. S. Government Census data
   • Fun statistics from NationMaster
   • Transcripts of (previously) secret recordings of Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon

    

7. Look at "Cracked" to see two important ways that data can fool us: illusory correlation and mistaking correlation for causation.
    
8. Look at Dilbert to remind yourself that correlation does not mean causation.

• Wally fools the boss (by being a third variable)
• The boss fools himself

9. A helpful picture that will help you avoid confusing correlation with causation
10. Get help with the end-of-chapter exercises.

Chapter 7 exercises

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