सSaral Shiksha Yojna
Courses/Behavioral Research: Statistical Methods

Behavioral Research: Statistical Methods

CG3.402
Vinoo Alluri•Monsoon 2025-26•4 credits
Sample Papers/100-mark mock paper · Paper 4

100-mark mock paper · Paper 4

Duration: 120 min • Max marks: 100

Section A — MCQs (20 × 1 = 20 marks)

20 marks
  1. 1.What is the probability of two heads in two flips of a fair coin? (a) 0.25 (b) 0.5 (c) 0.75 (d) 11 m
  2. 2.The skewness of a left-skewed (negative) distribution typically has: (a) Mean > median (b) Mean < median (c) Mean = median (d) Mode > mean1 m
  3. 3.A power of 0.80 with α = 0.05 means: (a) 80% of effects are real (b) 80% probability of correctly detecting a true effect, with 5% Type I (c) 5% Type II error, 80% sensitivity (d) Always rejects H₀1 m
  4. 4.Which is true about the Friedman test? (a) For independent groups (b) For repeated-measures with non-normal data (c) Same as Kruskal-Wallis (d) For nominal data1 m
  5. 5.The variance of a discrete random variable equals: (a) E(X) (b) E(X²) − [E(X)]² (c) E(X)² (d) Σx · P(x)1 m
  6. 6.Selection bias most directly threatens: (a) Internal validity (b) External validity (c) Both (d) Neither1 m
  7. 7.Cohen's d = 0.2 means: (a) Small effect (b) Medium effect (c) Large effect (d) No effect1 m
  8. 8.A research design uses random assignment but a convenience sample. Validity: (a) Strong internal, strong external (b) Strong internal, weak external (c) Weak internal, strong external (d) Weak both1 m
  9. 9.A factor with eigenvalue of 0.85 in a PCA: (a) Always retained (b) Retained only if it's the first (c) Typically not retained under Kaiser's rule (< 1) (d) Cannot exist1 m
  10. 10.A study computes 95% CI for a difference: [−2, 4]. This is consistent with: (a) Significant effect at α = .05 (b) Non-significant effect at α = .05; CI spans 0 (c) Strong evidence the difference is positive (d) Strong evidence for null1 m
  11. 11.A heat map of a correlation matrix is best used to: (a) Visualise mean differences (b) See patterns of pairwise correlations among many variables (c) Test for significance (d) Compute regression coefficients1 m
  12. 12.A study claims a counterintuitive effect — eating chocolate is associated with Nobel prizes per capita across countries. Most likely interpretation: (a) Causal: chocolate makes geniuses (b) Confounded: wealthy countries with more food choice produce more Nobel laureates (c) Random fluctuation (d) Causal: Nobel prizes increase chocolate consumption1 m
  13. 13.The "look" of an ANOVA table includes columns: (a) SS, df, MS, F, p (b) SS, n, σ, p (c) μ, σ, F (d) χ², df, p1 m
  14. 14.Which is the *correct* interpretation of a regression coefficient β₁ = 3? (a) X explains 3 units of Y (b) When X increases by 1 unit, Y increases by 3 units on average, holding other predictors constant (c) The correlation is 3 (d) Y/X = 31 m
  15. 15.Convergent validity is established when: (a) A measure correlates with conceptually unrelated measures (b) A measure correlates with other measures of the same construct (c) Test-retest is high (d) Items are internally consistent1 m
  16. 16.A binomial distribution becomes approximately normal when: (a) n is small (b) p = 0 (c) np and n(1 − p) are both ≥ ~10 (d) Never1 m
  17. 17.Researcher peeks at p after each new participant, stopping at p < .05. The actual Type I rate: (a) Equals 0.05 (b) Exceeds 0.05, often substantially (c) Below 0.05 (d) Unaffected1 m
  18. 18."BF₁₀ = 0.3" indicates: (a) Strong evidence for H₁ (b) Anecdotal/weak evidence favoring H₀ (1/0.3 ≈ 3.3) (c) Equivocal (d) Decisive H₀1 m
  19. 19.A bootstrap procedure: (a) Increases sample size from population (b) Resamples with replacement from the observed sample to estimate sampling distribution (c) Adds noise to data (d) Is a Bayesian method1 m
  20. 20.A research design that fails to control for time of day in a within-subjects task may suffer: (a) Construct validity issues (b) Order/time confound (c) Type I error inflation (d) Sphericity violation1 m

Section B — MSQs (10 × 2 = 20 marks)

20 marks
  1. 1.Which can be tested with a Chi-square test of independence? (a) Gender × handedness (b) Smoking × lung cancer (yes/no) (c) Height (cm) × weight (kg) (d) Treatment group × recovery (yes/no) (e) IQ score × age2 m
  2. 2.Which of the following are true about the sampling distribution of the mean? (a) Mean of sampling distribution = μ (b) SD of sampling distribution = σ/√n (c) Shape approaches normal as n grows (CLT) (d) SD of sampling distribution equals σ (e) Variance of sampling distribution = σ²/n2 m
  3. 3.Which are properties of OLS regression residuals? (a) Sum to zero (when intercept is included) (b) Orthogonal to predictors (c) Have mean zero (d) Should be approximately normally distributed for inference (e) Variance should be constant2 m
  4. 4.What can cause low reliability? (a) Ambiguous item wording (b) Random measurement noise (c) Heterogeneous test environment (d) Strong construct validity (e) Inconsistent rater training2 m
  5. 5.Which are common assumptions of parametric tests? (a) Normality (b) Homogeneity of variance (c) Interval/ratio DV (d) Independence (e) Linearity (regression)2 m
  6. 6.Sources of measurement error include: (a) Random fluctuations in attention (b) Equipment calibration drift (c) Rater inconsistency (d) Construct definition (e) Environmental conditions2 m
  7. 7.Which strengthen statistical conclusion validity? (a) Larger n (b) Reliable measures (c) Lower measurement noise (d) Smaller α (e) Pre-registration2 m
  8. 8.Which are characteristics of the F-distribution? (a) Symmetric around 0 (b) Right-skewed (c) Always non-negative (d) Defined by two degrees of freedom (e) Used in ANOVA and regression model tests2 m
  9. 9.Which of these would warrant a non-parametric test? (a) Heavily skewed continuous data (b) Ordinal outcome (c) Tiny sample with non-normal residuals (d) Ratio data with equal variance and normality (e) Outliers that cannot be justifiably removed2 m
  10. 10.In a Bayesian analysis, the prior: (a) Reflects pre-data beliefs about parameters (b) Has no effect on the posterior (c) Can be updated to a posterior via Bayes' rule (d) Should be chosen carefully and reported transparently (e) Influences the posterior more when data is sparse2 m

Section C — Short Descriptive (6 × 5 = 30 marks)

30 marks

    Section D — Long Descriptive (3 × 10 = 30 marks)

    30 marks

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