Common mistake: Neglecting to think adequately about possible consequences of Ty

pe I and Type II errors (and deciding acceptable levels of Type I and II errors
based on these consequences) before conducting a study and analyzing data.
Common mistake: Neglecting to think adequately about possible consequences of Ty
pe I and Type II errors (and deciding acceptable levels of Type I and II errors
based on these consequences) before conducting a study and analyzing data.
Sometimes there may be serious consequences of each alternative, so some comprom
ises or weighing priorities may be necessary. The trial analogy illustrates this
well: Which is better or worse, imprisoning an innocent person or letting a gui
lty person go free?6 This is a value judgment; value judgments are often involv
ed in deciding on significance levels. Trying to avoid the issue by always choos
ing the same significance level is itself a value judgment.
Sometimes different stakeholders have different interests that compete (e.g., in
the second example above, the developers of Drug 2 might prefer to have a small
er significance level.)
See http://core.ecu.edu/psyc/wuenschk/StatHelp/Type-I-II-Errors.htm for more dis
cussion of the considerations involved in deciding what are reasonable levels fo
r Type I and Type II errors.
See the discussion of Power for more on deciding on a significance level.
Similar considerations hold for setting confidence levels for confidence interva
ls.
Common mistake: Claiming that an alternate hypothesis has been "proved" because
it has been rejected in a hypothesis test.
This is an instance of the common mistake of expecting too much certainty.
There is always a possibility of a Type I error; the sample in the study might h
ave been one of the small percentage of samples giving an unusually extreme test
statistic.
This is why replicating experiments (i.e., repeating the experiment with another
sample) is important. The more experiments that give the same result, the stron
ger the evidence.
There is also the possibility that the sample is biased or the method of analysi
s was inappropriate; either of these could lead to a misleading result.
Type II Error
Not rejecting the null hypothesis when in fact the alternate hypothesis is true
is called a Type II error. (The second example below provides a situation where
the concept of Type II error is important.)
Note: "The alternate hypothesis" in the definition of Type II error may refer to
the alternate hypothesis in a hypothesis test, or it may refer to a "specific"
alternate hypothesis.
Example: In a t-test for a sample mean , with null hypothesis "" = 0" and alternat
e hypothesis " > 0", we may talk about the Type II error relative to the general
alternate hypothesis " > 0", or may talk about the Type II error relative to the
specific alternate hypothesis " > 1". Note that the specific alternate hypothesis
is a special case of the general alternate hypothesis.
In practice, people often work with Type II error relative to a specific alterna
te hypothesis. In this situation, the probability of Type II error relative to t
he specific alternate hypothesis is often called . In other words, is the probabi
lity of making the wrong decision when the specific alternate hypothesis is true
.
Common mistake: Neglecting to think adequately about possible consequences of Ty
pe I and Type II errors (and deciding acceptable levels of Type I and II errors
based on these consequences) before conducting a study and analyzing data.
Quantitative and Statistical Research Methods: From Hypothesis to Results
By William E. Martin, Krista D. Bridgmon
Why Are So Many Women Depressed?
Kohlberg, L., & Hersh, R. H. (1977). Moral Development: A Review of the Theory.
Theory Into Practice, 16(2), 53-59.
Kretchmar,
Physical, Cognitive, Emotional and Social Development, Conception through Toddle
rhood
J. (2014). Moral Development. Moral Development -- Research Starters Education,
1.
Reimer, J. (1977). A Structural Theory of Moral Development. Theory Into Practic
e, 16(2), 60-66.
Kohlberg, L., & Hersh, R. H. (1977). Moral Development: A Review of the Theory.
Theory Into Practice, 16(2), 53-59.
Piagets Cognitive-Developmental
Theory
If one individual has influenced research on child development
more than any other, it is Swiss cognitive theorist Jean Piaget
(18961980). North American investigators had been aware of
Piagets work since 1930. But they did not grant it much attention
until the 1960s, mainly because Piagets ideas were at odds
with behaviorism, which dominated North American psychology
in the mid-twentieth century (Cairns & Cairns, 2006).
Piaget did not believe that childrens learning depends on reinforcers,
such as rewards from adults. According to his
cognitive-developmental theory, children actively construct
knowledge as they manipulate and explore their world.
PIAGETS STAGES. Piagets view of development was
greatly influenced by his early training in biology. Central to his
theory is the biological concept of adaptation (Piaget, 1971).
Just as structures of the body are adapted to fit with the environment,
so structures of the mind develop to better fit with, or
represent, the external world. In infancy and early childhood,
Piaget claimed, childrens understanding is different from
adults. For example, he believed that young babies do not realize
that an object hidden from viewa favorite toy or even the
mothercontinues to exist.He also concluded that preschoolers
thinking is full of faulty logic.
In Piagets theory, as the brain develops and childrens experiences
expand, they move through four broad stages, each characterized
by qualitatively distinct ways of thinking. Table 1.4 on
page 20 provides a brief description of Piagets stages. Cognitive
development begins in the sensorimotor stage with the babys use
of the senses and movements to explore the world. These action
patterns evolve into the symbolic but illogical thinking of the
preschooler in the preoperational stage. Then cognition is transformed
into the more organized, logical reasoning of the
school-age child in the concrete operational stage. Finally, in the
formal operational stage, thought becomes the abstract, systematic
reasoning system of the adolescent and adult.
Piaget devised special methods for investigating how children
think. Early in his career, he carefully observed his three
infant children and presented them with everyday problems,
such as an attractive object that could be grasped, mouthed,
kicked, or searched for. From their responses, Piaget derived his
ideas about cognitive changes during the first two years. To
study childhood and adolescent thought, Piaget adapted the
clinical method of psychoanalysis, conducting open-ended
clinical interviews in which a childs initial response to a task
served as the basis for Piagets next question.We will look more
closely at this technique when we discuss research methods
later in this chapter.
CONTRIBUTIONS AND LIMITATIONS OF PIAGETS
THEORY. Piaget convinced the field that children are active
learners whose minds consist of rich structures of knowledge.
Besides investigating childrens understanding of the physical
world, Piaget explored their reasoning about the social world.