Week 1 Assessment — Psychology as a Science

Mastery Authority

Your stored score controls Week 1 mastery

A completed lesson is not automatically mastered. Week 1 mastery comes from an assessment score of 80% or higher.

Form A · First Attempt

Week 1 Knowledge Check

1. Psychology is best defined as: the study of personality types the scientific study of behavior and mental processes the treatment of psychological disorders

2. Which statement best describes psychological perspectives? Each perspective identifies a different kind of person. Only one perspective can be scientifically correct for a behavior. Perspectives emphasize different levels or processes and can generate competing explanations.

3. An operational definition is: a precise rule for measuring or manipulating a variable an informal opinion about why behavior occurs the number of people in a population

4. A positive correlation means: one variable causes the other to improve higher values on one variable tend to occur with higher values on another both variables are measured without error

5. A student taps a pencil 12 times during a task. Which statement is an inference? The student tapped the pencil 12 times. Twelve taps were recorded during the task. The student was anxious.

6. A researcher explains increased class participation by examining changed peer norms. Which perspective is most directly emphasized? social-cultural biological sensory

7. Which design most strongly supports a causal conclusion, assuming it is ethical and well controlled? observing two variables that naturally occur together manipulating an independent variable and comparing appropriately assigned conditions collecting one person's anecdote

8. A test gives nearly identical scores each week but does not measure the construct it claims to measure. Best interpretation? valid but unreliable causal but not correlational possibly reliable, but validity is not established

9. Reported sleep and memory scores rise together in a small observational dataset. Which conclusion is strongest? More sleep definitely caused better memory. Sleep and memory were positively associated in this sample. Seven hours is optimal for every student.

10. Which proposed class activity best respects research ethics? analyze a fictional dataset and critique its design secretly record private conversations require classmates to disclose medical information

Answer all 10 questions, then score the assessment.

Targeted Correction

Review before the retake

Your first attempt did not yet meet mastery. Review the concepts below, return to the relevant Week 1 lessons if needed, and then use Form B.

Write one correction rule you will use on the retake.

Form B · Parallel Retake

New questions, same standards

1. Which question is psychological and researchable? How does retrieval practice affect delayed recall on a defined task? Which personality is the best? Why are some people just lazy?

2. A cognitive perspective would most directly examine: group norms expectations and memory strategies hormone concentrations only

3. Which is the clearest operational definition of “helping” in a study? being a kind person caring about others number of dropped pencils a participant picks up within 60 seconds

4. Ice-cream sales and sunburn reports rise together in summer. A plausible third variable is: hotter, sunnier weather ice cream directly causes sunburn correlation cannot occur in seasons

5. Which is an observation? The participant was confused. The participant requested the instructions three times. The participant lacked motivation.

6. A researcher examines how rewards after practice change future practice frequency. Most directly emphasized: developmental perspective social-cultural perspective behavioral/learning perspective

7. Why does random assignment help an experiment? it reduces systematic pre-existing differences between conditions it guarantees a representative population sample it eliminates all measurement error

8. A measure can be reliable without being valid because: reliability and validity mean the same thing a measure can be consistent yet support the wrong interpretation validity is only about sample size

9. Group A scores 48% and Group B 52%. A graph begins its vertical axis at 47%. Main concern? percentages cannot be graphed the graph automatically becomes false the visual scale may exaggerate a small difference if context is not clear

10. A study uses justified deception under ethical review. What is especially important afterward? hiding the purpose permanently appropriate debriefing publishing participant names

This is a parallel form: new questions testing the same Week 1 standards.

Mastery Reached

Week 1 is mastered

Your stored assessment evidence meets the 80% threshold. You can now move forward with Week 2 when its student-facing lessons are available.

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Mastery Assessment

Your stored score controls Week 1 mastery

Week 1 Knowledge Check

Review before the retake

New questions, same standards

Week 1 is mastered