EXERCISES AND PROJECTS

The concept of triangulation is illustrated by the discrepancy some researchers have found between what people actually do and what they say they do. For example, a survey questionnaire might show that 70 percent of a country's eligible voters cast ballots in the last election, whereas the county board of elections might put the actual voter turnout at only 50 percent.
Show how the principle of triangulation could be applied in measuring:

1. Attitudes toward "law and order"
2. Attitudes toward the Affordable Care Act, sometimes referred to as "Obamacare"

For this project, you are to select and read an article from a journal in your major that reports the result of either a laboratory experiment or a field experiment. Your instructor will suggest journals that are likely to contain reports of experimental studies. The purpose of this project is for you to obtain some experience in evaluating experiments.

1. Give the complete bibliographic reference for the article you selected.
2. On the basis of the authors' report of how the experiment was carried out, would you say that it had:
   1. Experimental realism? Why or why not?
   2. Mundane realism? Why or why not?
3. If the experiment was lacking in either experimental realism or mundane realism, suggest how it might have been altered to increase the realism.
4. Is it likely that the experimental results have been contaminated by any of the following? If so, tell how; if not, tell how they were avoided.
   1. Demand characteristics
   2. Experimenter bias
   3. Measurement artifacts