GENERALIZING RESULTS © 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Discuss the issues created by generalizing research results to other populations, including potential problems using college students as research participants Discuss issues to consider regarding generalization of research results to other cultures and ethnic groups © 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Describe the potential problem of generalizing to other experimenters, and suggest possible solutions Discuss the importance of replications, distinguishing between exact replications and conceptual replications Distinguish between narrative literature reviews and meta-analysis © 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Participants typically not selected from the general population, and their samples may affect external validity College Students Young, with social and political attitudes in flux Well-developed cognitive skills More homogeneous than the general population Volunteers Gender Considerations Locale Generalization as a Statistical Interaction In Defense of College Students and Rats © 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Until recently experiments conducted with college students in the U.S. were primarily white, which reflected college student population at the time Today most samples of college students are ethnically diverse, matching the more modern diverse population in college © 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Important to be aware of the ways in which the operational definitions of the constructs that we study are grounded in a particular cultural meaning © 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

The experimenter’s influence on subjects needs to be constant throughout the experiment Personality Gender Experience A solution is to use two or more experimenters © 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Should a Pretest Be Given? Helps assess mortality effects There may be an interaction between the IV and the pretest variable © 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Exact Replications An attempt to replicate precisely the procedures of a study Ascertain whether the same results are obtained with replication Conceptual Replications The use of different procedures to replicate a research finding The IV from previous study is manipulated in different ways © 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Literature Review Provides Information that: Summarizes what has been found Tells the reader: What findings are strongly supported What findings are weakly supported Exposes inconsistent findings and areas lacking proper research Discusses future directions for research © 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Meta-analysis: method for determining the reliability of a finding by examining the results from many different studies Researcher combines actual results © 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Goal of psychology is to promote human welfare Impact of psychological research Health Law and Criminal Justice Education Work Environments © 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.