Exercise 02
Evidence for “textbook” findings
Dates
Due: Friday, September 20.
Goals
This exercise involves evaluating the base of evidence that supports a particular finding reported in a psychology textbook.
Assignment
You may work with one other person if you wish.
Your goal is to evaluate whether the base of evidence that supports a finding in one of your textbooks. That base of evidence involves several components: the number, quantity, and quality of studies that replicated the original finding; the clarity of the methods description; the availability of shared data; and so on.
- Choose a finding from one of your psychology textbooks OR the paper you analyzed for Exercise 01.
- If your source is a textbook, identify the primary citation or source for the claim. Find the cited paper, and use the rubric described in (Carey, Steiner, & Petri, 2020) to read the paper you chose.
- Extract from the paper the main claims, statements in the text that describe the results, and the display items, the tables or figures that support the author(s) arguments for their claim(s)1.
- Create a table summarizing the main claim(s), your evaluation about whether they are causal or descriptive2, and the evidence that supports them.
| Claim | Causal or Descriptive | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| “Cheetos are the best thing since sliced bread.” (pp. 24, para 3) | Descriptive | 1) Figure 1 shows that snack fans rate Cheetos higher than sliced bread. 2) “Mean ratings for Cheetos are higher than those for sliced bread, t(56)=3.58, p<.05” (pp. 15, para 1) |
| “Eating Cheetos before bedtime causes cancer.” | Causal | Table 1 shows cancer rates for bedtime Cheetos- vs. non-Cheetos-eating people |
- Look up your paper on Google Scholar. How many citations does the original paper have? How many of the citations to the original paper appear to be replication studies?
You might filter your original search to see if “replication” is in the title or abstract.
- Does the original paper include shared data?
- What is your opinion about the strength of the accumulated evidence for the finding(s). Make sure to justify your arguments.
Submit
A 2-3 page (double-spaced) paper describing your findings in Microsoft Word format using the following file-naming convention:
<lastname>-<firstname>-PSYCH490.012-ex02.docx, where you substitute your last name for gilmore-rick-PSYCH490.012-ex02.docx.
Here is the Canvas dropbox for the assignment:
https://psu.instructure.com/courses/2350148/assignments/16528460
Please use the APA format for your paper. I found the following template document that would be a very good start:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IIKwtH7eVXIkQMz4FwMuKol6hMDT3ra9/copy
3: Limit yourself to three (3) claims even if the paper makes more. [^2]: From (“Chapter 2 scoping,” 2022), “Causal claim: a claim is causal if it can be summarize using causal language. This language can be characterize by the following structure: “The paper estimates the effect of a variable X on outcome Y for population P, using method M”. For example: “This paper investigates the impact of bicycle provision (X) on secondary school enrollment (Y) among young women in Bihar/India (P), using a Difference in Difference approach (M). Descriptive/predictive claim: a claim is descriptive or predictive if it can be summarize using descriptive or predictive language. language can be characterize by the following structure: “The paper estimates the value of a variable Y (estimated or predicted) for population P under dimensions X (optional) using method M”. For example, “Drawing on a unique Swiss data set (P) and exploiting systematic anomalies in countries’ portfolio investment positions (M), I find that around 8% of the global financial wealth of households is held in tax havens (Y).”