TASC Student Directed Inquiry flashcards
TASC Student Directed Inquiry · Build recall with a focused review session.
32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.
- Researchable question
- A question specifying a population, variables, and a measurable outcome that can be answered with data collected within realistic time, access, and ethical limits.
- Operational definition
- A precise statement of how an abstract concept will be measured or manipulated in a study, such as defining attention span as minutes on task before off-task behavior.
- Falsifiable hypothesis
- A predicted relationship between variables stated so that specific observations could show it to be false, making it testable rather than merely descriptive.
- Closed versus open questions
- Closed questions produce discrete or numeric answers such as yes/no or a count; open questions produce descriptive or explanatory answers requiring interpretation.
- Primary source
- A source presenting original data, direct observation, or a first-hand account, such as a research article reporting its own experiment or survey results.
- Peer review
- A process in which independent experts evaluate a manuscript's methods and claims before publication, raising evidentiary weight compared with unreviewed web content.
- CRAAP test
- An evaluation checklist covering currency, relevance, authority, accuracy, and purpose, used to judge whether a source is suitable for supporting a research claim.
- Corroboration
- Confirmation of a claim by at least two independent sources; agreement across unrelated sources strengthens confidence, while a lone source supports only tentative statements.
- Citation elements
- The details needed to relocate a source: author, publication date, title, and publisher or DOI/URL, plus access date for web pages that may change.
- Source bias indicators
- Signals such as loaded language, absent citations, undisclosed funding, and one-sided evidence selection that suggest a source's claims may be distorted.
- Controlled experiment
- A design in which the researcher manipulates the independent variable, measures the dependent variable, and holds other conditions constant to isolate cause and effect.
- Control group
- The comparison group that receives no treatment or an inert placebo, providing a baseline against which the treatment group's outcomes are measured.
- Random assignment
- Placing participants into treatment and control groups by chance, which balances known and unknown characteristics and reduces selection bias in experiments.
- Confounding variable
- An unmeasured factor that changes along with the independent variable and provides an alternative explanation for the observed outcome of a study.
- Double-blind procedure
- A design in which neither participants nor the people collecting or scoring data know who received the treatment, reducing expectancy and demand effects.
- Internal validity
- The degree to which a study's design supports a causal conclusion, weakened by confounds, poor randomization, attrition, and measurement error.
- Reliability versus validity
- Reliability is consistency of repeated measurements; validity is whether the measure captures the intended construct. A measure can be reliable but invalid.
- Informed consent
- Voluntary agreement to participate given after being told the study's purpose, procedures, risks, benefits, and the right to withdraw at any time.
- Mean, median, mode
- Three measures of center: the arithmetic average, the middle value of ordered data, and the most frequent value. The mean is most affected by outliers.
- Standard deviation
- A measure of how far observations typically fall from the mean; a larger value indicates greater spread or variability within the data set.
- Correlation coefficient
- A value from -1 to +1 summarizing the strength and direction of a linear relationship; near zero indicates no linear association, not necessarily independence.
- Percent change formula
- Percent change equals the new value minus the old value, divided by the old value, multiplied by 100; percentage points measure differences between two percentages.
- Graph selection rule
- Bar charts compare categories, histograms show distribution shape, line graphs display trends over time, and scatterplots reveal relationships between two quantitative variables.
- Outlier handling
- Outliers are extreme values identified by a stated rule; any exclusion must be applied consistently and reported with justification rather than removed silently.
- Qualitative versus quantitative data
- Quantitative data are numeric and analyzed with statistics; qualitative data are descriptive text, images, or observations analyzed by coding into themes.
- Claim, evidence, reasoning
- The three-part argument structure: the position asserted, the data supporting it, and the explanation of why that data justifies the claim.
- Alternative explanation
- A rival account for an observed result, such as a confound or selection effect, that must be ruled out before a causal claim is accepted.
- Correlation versus causation
- An association between variables does not prove one causes the other; reverse direction and third variables can produce the same pattern.
- Effect size versus significance
- Statistical significance indicates an unlikely result under chance alone; effect size indicates magnitude. A significant result may still be practically trivial.
- Overgeneralization
- Extending conclusions from a narrow or unrepresentative sample to a broader population without evidence that the findings transfer.
- Report structure
- Standard order for research write-ups: question and context, methods, results, interpretation, limitations, conclusion, and references, each with a distinct role.
- Figure caption requirements
- Each figure needs a title, labeled axes with units, a legend for multiple series, and a caption stating what the reader should conclude.