This Tutorial Letter (201) contains feedback on Assignment 01 for PYC3704 in the second semester. We
suggest you work through this material with care even where you answered the questions correctly, as
part of your preparation for the exam.
Tutorial Letter 102 will contain more information on the format of the exam and additional exercises for
you to practice on.
2. Feedback for Assignment 01 of Semester 2 of 2017
Each question is given, followed by the appropriate answer and an explanation of the correct
response. Work your way systematically through these, comparing it with your own answer. Even if
you chose the correct alternative, you may find that the explanations we give are useful. Try to
understand the explanations. Many of the items require insight, not just factual knowledge. You will
not pass this course if you try and memorise the questions and answers!
Question 1
An inference is - - - - -.
1. an explanation of why certain things are as they are observed to be
2. an educated guess about how certain phenomena may be interrelated
3. a generalisation from a specific situation to the phenomenon in general, which have a high
probability of being true
4. a conclusion which follows logically from certain premises and which must be true if the premises
are true
Answer: Option 3 is correct.
To infer something means to use the information at your disposal to make predictions. You generalize
the specific information at your disposal to a wider context, so it is more than an educated guess, as
stated in Option 2. Option 1 gives a definition of a theory. Inferences are never absolutely certain and
there is always a measure of probability involved (that is, a risk of being wrong). Option 4 refers to formal
deductive reasoning and does not apply to the case of reason by inference. See pp. 2 – 3 of the
PYC3704 Study Guide.
Question 2
In quantitative research, 'measurement' refers to which of the options given below?
(a) A procedure for allocating numbers to aspects of observations based on a rule
(b) A procedure for developing one or more hypotheses about objects or events
(c) A process of changing an abstract construct into a visible variable
1. Only (a)
2. (a) and (c) only
3. Only (b)
4. (b) and (c) only
Answer: Option 2 is correct.
2
, PYC3704/201
Statement (a) is a definition of measurement, so it is valid. Statement (c) describes operationalization,
but the aim of this is to produce a measurement (see the PYC3704 Guide pp. 5 – 6), so it is also
relevant. The process of developing hypotheses described in statement (b), however, has nothing to do
with measurement as such, even though measurements may be needed eventually to test the
hypotheses.
Question 3
Which one of the definitions below is FALSE?
1. The term construct is used to refer to an aspect of human behaviour or experience which is
abstracted from observations for study in psychological research
2. Measurement is a process whereby numbers are allocated to a construct according to a rule
3. When a psychological variable is measured, the result is referred to as a statistic
4. When a construct is measured, the resulting quantity is referred to as a variable
Answer: The correct choice would be Option 3, as this is the only description that is false.
A statistic is some kind of summary value calculated from a set of measurements across a sample of
data, not one specific measurement. This would include, for example, means, variances and standard
deviation are calculated from a sample of cases which were measured on some variable. These are
referred to as sample statistics (see the PYC3704 Guide, section 1.4.3, especially p. 13). The term 'test
statistic' is also used for the test value (a value with a known probability distribution) calculated in various
statistical tests. The other three options are all true.
Question 4
"The mental age of child number one is eight years”. In this statement “mental age” is a(n) - - - - -,
whereas “eight years” is a(n) - - - - -
1. variable; specific value of that variable
2. construct; variable
3. independent variable; dependant variable
4. hidden variable; descriptive statistic
Answer: Option 1 is correct.
Option 1 gives the only set of answers that make sense. 'Mental age' could be a variable (a
measurement of a construct which can take a variety of values) with 'eight years' one possible instance
of it (a specific measurement).
While 'mental age' could refer to a construct as implied in Option 2, 'eight years' cannot be a variable, so
this option is not valid. The terms “mental age” and “eight years” also clearly do not refer to different
types of variable, so Option 3 is irrelevant. "Eight years" is not a type of descriptive statistic, which
invalidates Option 4.
Question 5
A measurement that summarizes an aspect of a population is called a - - - - - while a measurement that
describes the same aspect of a sample is called - - - - -
, This option makes use of the definitions of 'parameter' (for a population) and 'statistic' for a sample. See
Section 1.4.3 of the PYC3704 Guide (especially the part that begins on the bottom of p. 12). The other
options are incorrect.
Question 6
A - - - - - is a speculative statement about the relationship among - - - - -, based on observations or
expectations
A theory is an explanation for the relationships observed among constructs (or variables) which has
been tested and is taken to be true, not a 'speculative statement', so both options 1 and 3 are false.
Such a speculative statement is usually referred to as a hypothesis, so either Option 2 or 3 can be true.
A hypothesis does not however refer to relationships among 'statistics', as this term refers to specific
values (such as means or standard deviations) which are used to summarize some overall
characteristics of a variable. Therefore Option 2 can be eliminated.
Note that if there was an option 'hypothesis' and 'variables', this could also be correct. A variable is just a
construct which has been measured or can be regarded as measurable, and the two words are often
used as synonyms in statistics books, where it is assumed that data are quantified.
Question 7
Rose is interested in studying creativity among fine arts students. She randomly selects 100 students
who are attending a school for fine arts and tests each of them on a creativity test. In this example, the
entire collection of fine arts students which Rose is interested in is referred to as the - - - - -, while the
100 cases which she requires to perform the creativity test are the - - - - -,
The population is the general group of people who are being studied, and the sample is a smaller group
of participants who are selected to represent the population. (See section 1.4.3 of the PYC3704 Guide).
Question 8
A frequency distribution of the ages in months of a class of Grade 1 children indicates for each age in
months what the corresponding - - - - - is.
1. variable
2. number of children of that age
3. z-score
4. probability
Answer: Option 2 is the correct answer.
A frequency distribution is a count of the number of items that falls into each of a number of categories.
In the case of a continuous variable like 'age', one would first create a number of mutually exclusive
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