Reading quiz FAQ

I understand timed assessments can be stressful, so I want to give you as much information as possible ahead of time about how the reading quizzes will work. At the end of this FAQ is a sample reading quiz with answers.

How many reading quizzes are there?

There are six reading quizzes, but you are only responsible for completing five of them. This means you can drop your lowest score or skip one with no penalty.

When are the reading quizzes administered?

Reading quizzes are administered at the beginning of class on Mondays. They will not necessarily start promptly at 2:10, but they will start no later than 2:15. Once the reading quiz begins, you will have 15 minutes to complete it.

What do the reading quizzes look like?

Each reading quiz will be administered via Canvas and will have the same format: three free-response questions, worth two points, two points, and one point, for a total of five points. You can see a sample reading quiz, with exemplary answers, below.

Are the quizzes open-book?

Sort of. Please note that this is different from what I said in class. You MAY look at the readings (and only the readings) during the quiz. However, if you have not done the readings ahead of time, you will likely not have enough time to learn everything on the spot and provide adequate quiz answers.

Can I use AI or the internet to help me complete the quiz?

No. While you may look at the readings to help you complete the quiz, you may not use AI or other online resources. Please note that on Canvas, the instructor can view minute by minute progress on quizzes once they are submitted, which means I can see if you’ve pasted in large blocks of text.

What happens if I’m late to class that day?

If you are late to class, the first thing you will do upon arrival is take the quiz in the hallway. The quiz will not be made available to you on Canvas until you arrive in class.

What happens if I miss class that day?

It is up to you to email me to find a time to reschedule your quiz as soon as possible. Ideally, you will take the quiz in my office, sometime before our Wednesday session that week. If I have not heard from you about rescheduling by the Wednesday session, you will receive a 0 for that reading quiz.

Sample reading quiz for 9/14 readings

Identify the three principles of the Belmont Report and explain in your own words what they mean. Then, pick a psychology study that is mentioned in this chapter of the textbook. Imagine you’re a member of an IRB and a researcher has proposed conducting this study. Write out your thought process on whether or not to approve it according to the Belmont Report principles. (2 points)

The three principles of the Belmont Report are beneficence, autonomy, and justice. Beneficence is about making sure benefits of research outweigh the risks. Autonomy is about treating your research participants like real people who deserve to know what’s going on. Justice is about making sure the harms and benefits of the research are distributed fairly.

The Milgram study, which made participants think they were shocking confederates and causing them great harm, is an interesting study that would answer important social psychology questions about following orders, but may not meet the principle of Beneficence because the harms caused to the participants would outweigh the benefits. Harms are distributed fairly so it meets the principle of Justice. Autonomy is a tricky one because participants are debriefed on the deception, but they are not aware during the study that they are not actually causing pain to others.

What is secondary psychology research, and how does our understanding of justice differ in this context from other types of psychology research? Provide an example of an additional consideration regarding justice when conducting secondary research. (2 points)

Secondary psychology research is research that is done on “secondary” data, meaning data that is already collected for another purpose, such as government records, social media data, or location data. In the Herington paper they describe the many differences between experimental and secondary psychology research, especially in regards to justice. With secondary data, you can’t provide consent or withdraw from the study. And because the data is anonymized, you can’t know if your dataset is demographically representative, or if it’s describing phenomena that affect one group more than another. When conducting secondary research, it’s important to try as much as possible to be transparent about the representativeness of the dataset so that you can qualify your claims and your research findings.

Do you think the research described in Kosinski et al. was ethical? Why or why not? Mention at least one Belmont Principle in your response. (1 point)

I do not think that the research described in Kosinski was ethical because although the participants agreed to the terms and conditions of using Facebook, they didn’t consent to their data being used in this way. This research violates the principle of Autonomy because the participants were not given the choice over how their data was used and they could not withdraw from the study.