- Therapeutic alliance
- The collaborative, trusting bond between counselor and client; one of the strongest predictors of outcome.
- Autonomy
- The ethical principle of respecting a client's right to self-determination and to make their own choices.
- Nonmaleficence
- The ethical principle of doing no harm; generally considered the most fundamental when principles conflict.
- Beneficence
- The ethical principle of actively promoting the client's well-being and good.
- Justice (ethics)
- The ethical principle of treating clients fairly and equitably.
- Fidelity
- The ethical principle of being loyal, honest, and keeping commitments to the client.
- Kitchener's 5 moral principles
- Autonomy, nonmaleficence, beneficence, justice, and fidelity — the foundation of counseling ethical decision-making.
- Informed consent
- The client's voluntary agreement to counseling after disclosure of its nature, goals, fees, confidentiality limits, and rights; an ongoing process.
- Confidentiality
- The counselor's duty to protect client information; its limits are disclosed during informed consent.
- Privileged communication
- A legal protection, held by the client, that keeps confidential communications from being disclosed in legal proceedings.
- Duty to warn / protect (Tarasoff)
- The duty to take reasonable steps to protect an identifiable victim from a client's serious, imminent threat of violence.
- Mandated reporting
- The legal duty to report reasonable suspicion of abuse or neglect of a child, elder, or dependent adult, overriding confidentiality.
- Dual (multiple) relationship
- A second role with a client beyond the professional one (social, business, sexual) that risks impaired judgment or exploitation.
- Scope of practice
- The range of services a counselor is competent and legally permitted to provide; practicing outside it is unethical.
- ACA Code of Ethics
- The American Counseling Association's ethical standards that govern professional counseling practice.
- Licensure vs. certification
- Licensure is a state legal credential to practice; certification is a non-governmental recognition of meeting a standard (e.g., NCC).
- Accreditation (CACREP)
- Recognition that a counseling program meets the standards of CACREP, the field's accrediting body.
- Ethical decision-making model
- A stepwise process: identify the problem, review the code, apply moral principles, weigh options, consult/document, then act and evaluate.
- Veracity
- The ethical principle of being truthful and honest with clients.
- Counselor self-care
- The professional responsibility to maintain one's own wellness to practice competently and avoid impairment and burnout.
- Clinical supervision
- A relationship in which a supervisor oversees and develops a counselor's clinical work to protect clients and build competence.
- Gatekeeping
- The ethical duty of programs and supervisors to ensure that only competent, fit candidates enter and remain in the profession.
- Advocacy
- Acting to address barriers and systemic inequities that affect clients' access, growth, and well-being.
- Boundary crossing vs. violation
- A crossing is a benign, sometimes helpful deviation from the norm; a violation harms or exploits the client.
- Malpractice
- Professional negligence — a breach of the standard of care that causes harm to a client.
- Subpoena vs. court order
- A subpoena requests records (privilege may be asserted); a valid court order can legally compel disclosure.
- Wellness model of counseling
- Counseling's identity is rooted in prevention, development, and wellness, not just treating pathology.
- Standard of care
- The level of skill and care a reasonably competent counselor would provide in similar circumstances.
- Informed consent for minors
- Consent generally rests with a parent/guardian; counselors still seek the minor's assent and protect their interests.
- HIPAA
- The federal law setting privacy and security standards for protected health information.
- Fidelity vs. veracity
- Fidelity is keeping promises and loyalty; veracity is being truthful — both are ethical principles.
- Aspirational vs. mandatory ethics
- Mandatory ethics is minimum compliance with the code; aspirational ethics strives for the highest good of the client.
- Duty to protect (self-harm)
- When a client is at imminent risk of suicide, the counselor must act to protect them — a limit to confidentiality.
- Release of information
- Written client authorization required before sharing confidential information with a third party.
- Multicultural counseling competence
- Counselor awareness of own biases, knowledge of clients' worldviews, and skills for culturally responsive counseling (Sue & Sue).
- Cultural humility
- An ongoing, learner stance of openness and self-reflection toward each client's culture and identity.
- Worldview
- The way a person perceives and interprets the world, shaped by culture, values, and experience.
- Emic vs. etic
- Emic = understanding behavior from within a specific culture; etic = applying universal, cross-cultural standards.
- Acculturation
- The process of cultural and psychological change from contact between cultures (e.g., assimilation, integration).
- Microaggression
- A subtle, often unintentional verbal or behavioral slight that communicates a hostile or negative message to a marginalized person.
- Cross's Nigrescence model
- Stages of Black racial identity development: pre-encounter, encounter, immersion-emersion, internalization, internalization-commitment.
- Helms's White racial identity model
- A model of how White individuals develop a nonracist identity through contact, disintegration, reintegration, and autonomy.
- Intersectionality
- The idea that overlapping identities (race, gender, class, etc.) combine to shape unique experiences of privilege and oppression.
- MSJCC
- The Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies — the field's current framework for culturally competent practice.
- Privilege
- Unearned advantages a person receives based on membership in a dominant social group.
- Oppression
- Systemic, unjust use of power that disadvantages marginalized groups.
- Stereotype
- An overgeneralized, fixed belief about a group applied to its individual members.
- Prejudice vs. discrimination
- Prejudice is a biased attitude; discrimination is biased behavior or action.
- Ethnocentrism
- Judging another culture by the standards of one's own, assuming one's own is superior.
- Collectivism vs. individualism
- Collectivist cultures prioritize group harmony and interdependence; individualist cultures prioritize personal goals and autonomy.
- Cultural encapsulation
- Wrenn's term for treating one's own cultural assumptions as universal and ignoring cultural variation.
- Sue & Sue tripartite model
- Multicultural competence as three dimensions: awareness, knowledge, and skills.
- Social justice in counseling
- Working to address inequities and advocate for marginalized clients at individual and systemic levels.
- Assimilation
- An acculturation strategy of adopting the dominant culture while shedding one's culture of origin.
- Heterosexism
- A system of attitudes and institutions that privileges heterosexuality and marginalizes LGBTQ+ people.
- Ableism
- Discrimination or prejudice against people with disabilities.
- RESPECTFUL model
- D'Andrea & Daniels's framework of 10 cultural factors counselors should consider (religion, economic status, sexual identity, etc.).
- ADDRESSING model
- Hays's framework of cultural influences (age, disability, religion, ethnicity, social status, sexual orientation, indigenous heritage, national origin, gender).
- Culturally responsive counseling
- Adapting assessment and interventions to fit the client's cultural context, values, and worldview.
- Acculturative stress
- Psychological strain that results from the demands of adapting to a new culture.
- In-group / out-group
- Social categorization into the group one identifies with vs. others, affecting bias and behavior.
- Implicit bias
- Unconscious attitudes or stereotypes that affect understanding, actions, and decisions.
- Locus of control (cultural)
- Whether a person attributes outcomes to internal effort or external forces; culturally influenced.
- Acculturation: integration
- Maintaining one's heritage culture while also participating in the dominant culture (often the healthiest strategy).
- Spirituality in counseling
- Attending to clients' spiritual and religious values as part of culturally responsive, holistic care.
- Gender identity vs. sexual orientation
- Gender identity is one's internal sense of gender; sexual orientation is one's pattern of attraction — distinct constructs.
- Erikson's psychosocial stages
- Eight lifespan crises from trust vs. mistrust through integrity vs. despair; each resolution yields a virtue.
- Trust vs. mistrust
- Erikson's first stage (infancy): consistent care builds trust; neglect breeds mistrust.
- Identity vs. role confusion
- Erikson's adolescent stage: forming a coherent sense of self vs. confusion about one's role.
- Piaget's cognitive stages
- Sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational stages of cognitive development.
- Sensorimotor stage
- Piaget's first stage (0–2): learning through senses and action; object permanence develops.
- Object permanence
- The understanding that objects continue to exist even when out of sight (Piaget, sensorimotor stage).
- Preoperational stage
- Piaget's stage (2–7): symbolic thought and language, but egocentrism and lack of conservation.
- Concrete operational stage
- Piaget's stage (7–11): logical thought about concrete events; conservation and reversibility develop.
- Formal operational stage
- Piaget's stage (11+): abstract and hypothetical reasoning.
- Assimilation vs. accommodation
- Assimilation fits new information into existing schemas; accommodation changes schemas to fit new information (Piaget).
- Kohlberg's moral development
- Three levels (preconventional, conventional, postconventional) of moral reasoning, each with two stages.
- Preconventional morality
- Kohlberg's first level: reasoning based on obedience/punishment and self-interest.
- Postconventional morality
- Kohlberg's highest level: reasoning based on the social contract and universal ethical principles.
- Bowlby's attachment theory
- Early bonds between infant and caregiver form an internal working model that shapes later relationships.
- Ainsworth's attachment styles
- From the Strange Situation: secure, anxious-avoidant, anxious-ambivalent, and disorganized attachment.
- Maslow's hierarchy of needs
- Needs from physiological → safety → love/belonging → esteem → self-actualization; lower needs come first.
- Self-actualization
- Maslow's highest need: realizing one's full potential and becoming all one is capable of becoming.
- Vygotsky's ZPD
- The zone of proximal development: the gap between what a learner can do alone and with guidance (scaffolding).
- Scaffolding
- Temporary support a more capable other provides to help a learner master a task (Vygotsky).
- Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems
- Nested environmental systems — micro, meso, exo, macro, chrono — that shape development.
- Kübler-Ross grief stages
- Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance — not strictly linear.
- Nature vs. nurture
- The debate over how genetics (nature) and environment/experience (nurture) shape development.
- Temperament
- An individual's innate, biologically based behavioral and emotional style, present early in life.
- Classical conditioning
- Learning by association (Pavlov): a neutral stimulus comes to elicit a response (e.g., bell → salivation).
- Operant conditioning
- Learning through consequences (Skinner): reinforcement increases behavior; punishment decreases it.
- Reinforcement vs. punishment
- Reinforcement increases a behavior's frequency; punishment decreases it; both can be positive (add) or negative (remove).
- Resilience
- The capacity to adapt well in the face of adversity, trauma, or significant stress.
- Egocentrism
- A preoperational child's inability to take another's perspective (Piaget).
- Conservation
- Understanding that quantity stays the same despite changes in shape or appearance (Piaget, concrete operational).
- Bandura's social learning theory
- Learning by observing and imitating models; includes reciprocal determinism and self-efficacy.
- Self-efficacy
- Bandura's concept of one's belief in their ability to succeed at a specific task.
- Industry vs. inferiority
- Erikson's school-age stage: developing competence through achievement vs. feelings of inadequacy.
- Holland's RIASEC
- Six personality/environment types: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, Conventional; fit = congruence.
- Congruence (Holland)
- The match between a person's type and their work environment; greater congruence predicts satisfaction.
- Super's life-span, life-space theory
- Career as implementation of self-concept across five stages and multiple life roles (Life-Career Rainbow).
- Career maturity
- Super's term for readiness to make appropriate career decisions for one's developmental stage.
- Parsons' trait-and-factor theory
- Match person traits to job factors through true reasoning — the foundation of vocational guidance.
- Krumboltz's social learning theory
- Learning experiences and chance events (planned happenstance) shape career paths.
- Planned happenstance
- Krumboltz's idea of turning unplanned events into career opportunities through curiosity and persistence.
- Gottfredson's circumscription & compromise
- People narrow career options early by sex-type, prestige, and interests, then compromise.
- Roe's theory
- Early needs and parent–child relationships steer people toward person-oriented or non-person-oriented careers.
- Self-Directed Search (SDS)
- A Holland-based career interest inventory clients can self-administer and score.
- Strong Interest Inventory
- A widely used interest inventory based on Holland's RIASEC types.
- O*NET
- The U.S. Department of Labor's occupational information database used in career counseling.
- Life-Career Rainbow
- Super's depiction of the life roles a person plays across the lifespan (child, student, worker, parent, etc.).
- Vocational identity
- A clear, stable picture of one's goals, interests, and talents related to career.
- Work values
- What a person seeks from work (e.g., achievement, autonomy, security) that guides career choice.
- Career decision-making self-efficacy
- Confidence in one's ability to make and follow through on career decisions.
- Ginzberg's theory
- Career choice as a developmental process with fantasy, tentative, and realistic periods.
- Trait-and-factor matching
- Aligning measured individual traits with the requirements of occupations.
- Holland's hexagon
- The arrangement of RIASEC types; adjacent types are most similar, opposite types most different.
- Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT)
- Lent, Brown & Hackett's theory: self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and goals drive career behavior.
- Career adaptability
- Resources for coping with current and anticipated career tasks, transitions, and traumas (Savickas).
- Informational interview
- A conversation with someone in a field of interest to gather career information.
- Career genogram
- A family-tree tool used to explore intergenerational influences on a client's career.
- Aptitude vs. interest
- Aptitude is capacity to learn a skill; interest is preference — both inform career fit.
- Realistic type (R)
- Holland 'doers' — practical, hands-on people who like tools, machines, and the outdoors.
- Investigative type (I)
- Holland 'thinkers' — analytical, intellectual people who like ideas and problem-solving.
- Artistic type (A)
- Holland 'creators' — expressive, original people who like unstructured, creative work.
- Social type (S)
- Holland 'helpers' — people who like teaching, counseling, and helping others.
- Enterprising type (E)
- Holland 'persuaders' — assertive people who like leading, selling, and influencing.
- Conventional type (C)
- Holland 'organizers' — orderly people who like data, detail, and structured tasks.
- Career counseling
- Helping clients with career exploration, decision-making, transition, and adjustment across the lifespan.
- Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT)
- A historical occupational reference now largely replaced by O*NET.
- Empathy
- Accurately sensing and reflecting a client's inner world as if it were your own.
- Unconditional positive regard
- Warm, non-judgmental acceptance of the client as a person of worth, regardless of behavior (Rogers).
- Congruence (genuineness)
- The counselor being real and transparent — outward responses match inner experience (Rogers).
- Rogers' core conditions
- Empathy, unconditional positive regard, and congruence — necessary and sufficient for client change.
- Person-centered therapy
- Rogers's nondirective approach in which the counselor's core conditions drive the client's growth.
- Transference
- The client's unconscious redirection of feelings about past figures onto the counselor.
- Countertransference
- The counselor's emotional reaction to the client; must be managed through self-awareness and supervision.
- Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)
- Structured, present-focused therapy that changes distorted thoughts and maladaptive behaviors.
- Cognitive distortions
- Beck's systematic errors in thinking (e.g., catastrophizing, all-or-nothing) that fuel distress.
- REBT ABC model
- Ellis's model: an Activating event filtered through a Belief produces the emotional Consequence; dispute irrational beliefs.
- Irrational beliefs
- Ellis's rigid 'musts' and 'shoulds' that cause emotional disturbance in REBT.
- Psychoanalysis (Freud)
- Therapy that makes the unconscious conscious through free association, dream analysis, and interpretation.
- Defense mechanisms
- Unconscious strategies (denial, projection, repression, rationalization, etc.) that protect against anxiety.
- Id, ego, superego
- Freud's structures: the id (drives), the ego (reality), and the superego (conscience/morals).
- Adlerian therapy
- Individual psychology emphasizing social interest, lifestyle, birth order, and overcoming inferiority.
- Gestalt therapy (Perls)
- Present-focused therapy emphasizing awareness, the here-and-now, and techniques like the empty chair.
- Empty chair technique
- A Gestalt experiment in which the client dialogues with an imagined person or part of self.
- Reality therapy (Glasser)
- Choice-theory approach focused on present choices and responsibility; uses the WDEP system.
- WDEP system
- Glasser's reality therapy process: Wants, Doing/Direction, Evaluation, Planning.
- Existential therapy
- Therapy addressing meaning, freedom, isolation, and death (Frankl, Yalom, May).
- Solution-focused brief therapy
- Goal-oriented model using the miracle question, exceptions, and scaling (de Shazer & Berg).
- Miracle question
- An SFBT technique asking the client to describe life if the problem were suddenly solved.
- Narrative therapy
- Approach (White & Epston) that externalizes the problem and helps clients re-author their stories.
- Motivational interviewing
- Collaborative method (Miller & Rollnick) that resolves ambivalence and evokes change talk using OARS.
- Stages of change
- Prochaska & DiClemente's transtheoretical stages: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance.
- Microskills
- Foundational counseling skills: attending, questioning, paraphrasing, reflecting feeling, and summarizing.
- Reflection of feeling
- A microskill that mirrors the client's emotion so they feel understood.
- Paraphrasing
- Restating the content of what the client said in the counselor's own words.
- Open vs. closed questions
- Open questions invite elaboration; closed questions elicit brief, specific answers.
- Behavioral therapy
- Therapy applying learning principles (conditioning, reinforcement) to change behavior.
- Systematic desensitization
- A behavioral technique pairing relaxation with a graded hierarchy of feared stimuli to reduce anxiety.
- Resistance
- Client behavior that opposes the work of counseling; often a signal to adjust the approach or repair the alliance.
- Working alliance (Bordin)
- The bond plus agreement on the goals and tasks of counseling.
- Tuckman's group stages
- Forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning — the stages a group moves through.
- Forming stage
- The orientation stage: members are polite, anxious, and dependent on the leader.
- Storming stage
- The conflict stage: resistance and competition for roles; the leader manages conflict.
- Norming stage
- The cohesion stage: trust and norms develop; deeper self-disclosure and real work begin.
- Performing stage
- The work stage: the group is productive and interdependent toward its goals.
- Adjourning stage
- The termination stage: members consolidate gains and process ending the group.
- Yalom's therapeutic factors
- Eleven curative factors of groups (e.g., universality, cohesion, instillation of hope, catharsis).
- Universality
- Yalom's factor: realizing one is not alone and others share similar struggles.
- Group cohesion
- The sense of belonging, trust, and 'we-ness' that makes a group therapeutic; the group analog of the alliance.
- Instillation of hope
- Yalom's factor: seeing others improve builds the belief that change is possible.
- Linking
- A group leadership skill connecting one member's experience to another's to build cohesion.
- Blocking
- A group leadership skill that stops harmful or counterproductive behavior in the group.
- Cutting off
- Tactfully stopping a member who is rambling or dominating to protect the group's time.
- Drawing out
- Inviting a quiet or withdrawn member into the group's interaction.
- Psychoeducational group
- A group focused on teaching information and skills (e.g., stress management) to prevent problems.
- Counseling/process group
- A group focused on interpersonal problem-solving, growth, and the here-and-now.
- Psychotherapy group
- A group addressing more severe or chronic psychological problems, often longer-term.
- Task/work group
- A group organized to accomplish a specific task or goal (e.g., a committee).
- Here-and-now
- Focusing on the immediate interactions and feelings in the group as they occur.
- Co-leadership
- Two leaders sharing a group; offers modeling and broader perspective but requires coordination.
- Group norms
- The shared, often unspoken rules that govern group members' behavior.
- Therapeutic factors vs. curative factors
- Synonyms for Yalom's mechanisms through which group members benefit.
- Screening members
- The ethical pre-group task of selecting members likely to benefit and not harm the group.
- Confidentiality in groups
- Leaders cannot guarantee it because members are not bound by the code; this limit is disclosed up front.
- Group leadership styles
- Authoritarian, democratic, and laissez-faire (Lewin); democratic is generally most effective.
- Catharsis
- The therapeutic release of strong emotion within the group (a Yalom factor).
- Altruism
- Yalom's factor: members benefit from helping one another.
- Corrective recapitulation of the family
- Yalom's factor: the group re-enacts and heals early family dynamics.
- ASGW
- The Association for Specialists in Group Work — the ACA division setting group-work standards.
- Process vs. content
- Process is how the group interacts (dynamics); content is what is discussed (topic).
- Sociometry
- Moreno's method of measuring relationships and attractions/rejections within a group.
- Group cohesion vs. alliance
- Cohesion is the bond among members and to the group; the working alliance is the bond with the leader.
- Reliability
- The consistency of a test's results across time, items, or raters.
- Validity
- Whether a test actually measures what it claims to measure.
- Test-retest reliability
- Consistency of scores when the same test is given to the same people at two times.
- Internal consistency
- How well a test's items measure the same construct (e.g., Cronbach's alpha).
- Cronbach's alpha
- A statistic estimating internal-consistency reliability; values closer to 1.0 indicate higher reliability.
- Inter-rater reliability
- Agreement between different raters scoring the same responses.
- Content validity
- The degree to which a test's items represent the full domain it is meant to measure.
- Criterion validity
- How well test scores predict or correlate with an outcome (concurrent or predictive).
- Construct validity
- The degree to which a test measures the theoretical construct it claims to.
- Concurrent vs. predictive validity
- Concurrent correlates with a current criterion; predictive forecasts a future one.
- Standard error of measurement (SEM)
- An estimate of how much an observed score would vary across repeated testings due to error.
- Normal curve
- The symmetric, bell-shaped distribution where mean, median, and mode coincide.
- Standard deviation
- A measure of how spread out scores are around the mean.
- Percentile rank
- The percentage of scores in a distribution at or below a given score.
- Z-score
- A standard score expressing how many standard deviations a raw score is from the mean (mean 0, SD 1).
- T-score
- A standard score with a mean of 50 and a standard deviation of 10.
- Mean, median, mode
- Measures of central tendency: the average, the middle value, and the most frequent value.
- Norm-referenced test
- A test that compares a person's score to those of a norm group.
- Criterion-referenced test
- A test that compares a person's score to a fixed standard or mastery level.
- Mental Status Exam (MSE)
- A structured snapshot of a client's current functioning: appearance, mood, thought, perception, cognition, insight, judgment.
- DSM-5-TR
- The American Psychiatric Association's current diagnostic manual used to determine mental health diagnoses.
- Differential diagnosis
- Distinguishing among disorders with overlapping symptoms to identify the most accurate one.
- Objective vs. projective tests
- Objective tests (MMPI) have fixed responses; projective tests (Rorschach, TAT) elicit open responses to ambiguous stimuli.
- MMPI
- The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory — a widely used objective personality/psychopathology test.
- Rorschach
- A projective test using inkblots to assess personality and thought process.
- WAIS / WISC
- The Wechsler Adult and Children's Intelligence Scales — major individual IQ tests.
- Standardization
- Administering and scoring a test under uniform conditions so results are comparable.
- Aptitude vs. achievement test
- Aptitude predicts future learning/performance; achievement measures what has already been learned.
- Skewed distribution
- An asymmetric distribution; positive skew has a right tail, negative skew a left tail.
- Confidence interval
- A band around a score (built using the SEM) within which the true score likely falls.
- Sensitivity vs. specificity
- Sensitivity is the rate of correctly identifying true positives; specificity, true negatives.
- Bias in testing
- Systematic error that gives one group an unfair advantage or disadvantage on a test.
- Independent variable
- The variable the researcher manipulates to observe its effect.
- Dependent variable
- The outcome variable measured to see the effect of the independent variable.
- Null hypothesis
- The default claim that there is no effect or no difference; statistical tests try to reject it.
- Alternative hypothesis
- The claim that there is an effect or difference, accepted if the null is rejected.
- p-value
- The probability of obtaining results as extreme as observed if the null hypothesis were true.
- Statistical significance
- Results unlikely due to chance, typically when p is below the alpha level (e.g., .05).
- Alpha level
- The threshold (often .05) for rejecting the null hypothesis; the Type I error rate.
- Type I error
- A false positive — rejecting a true null hypothesis (concluding an effect exists when it doesn't).
- Type II error
- A false negative — failing to reject a false null hypothesis (missing a real effect).
- Statistical power
- The probability (1 − beta) of correctly detecting a real effect; increased by larger samples.
- Correlation
- A measure of how two variables move together, ranging from -1.0 to +1.0; does not prove causation.
- Correlation vs. causation
- Correlation shows association; only controlled experiments with random assignment support causal claims.
- Effect size
- A measure of the magnitude of a difference or relationship, independent of sample size.
- Experimental design
- A design with manipulation of the IV and random assignment, allowing causal inference.
- Quasi-experimental design
- A design that lacks random assignment but still compares groups or conditions.
- Random assignment
- Placing participants into conditions by chance, equalizing groups and supporting causal inference.
- Internal validity
- The extent to which a study supports a causal claim, free of confounds.
- External validity
- The extent to which findings generalize to other people, settings, and times.
- Confounding variable
- An extraneous variable that influences both the IV and DV, threatening internal validity.
- Qualitative research
- Research exploring meaning and experience through words and themes (e.g., interviews, case studies).
- Quantitative research
- Research that measures variables numerically and analyzes them statistically.
- t-test
- A statistic comparing the means of two groups.
- ANOVA
- Analysis of variance — a statistic comparing means across three or more groups.
- Chi-square
- A statistic testing associations between categorical variables.
- Sampling
- Selecting participants from a population; random sampling supports generalizability.
- Stratified sampling
- Dividing a population into subgroups and sampling from each to ensure representation.
- Reliability vs. validity (research)
- Reliability is consistency of measurement; validity is accuracy and soundness of inferences.
- IRB
- Institutional Review Board — reviews research to protect human participants' rights and welfare.
- Informed consent (research)
- Participants' voluntary, informed agreement to take part in a study.
- Single-subject design
- A research design tracking one participant (or a few) across baseline and intervention phases.
- Program evaluation
- Systematic assessment of a program's design, implementation, and outcomes to inform decisions.
- Mean vs. median in skew
- In a skewed distribution, the mean is pulled toward the tail; the median is more robust.
