Research Methods in Psychology

Methods of Knowing

Intuition, authority, rationalism, empiricism, and scientific method

Intuition

gut instinct

Authority

trust

Rationalism

Reasoning

Empiricism

Evidence

Scientific Method

Systematic evidence

Goals of science

Describe, predict, and explain

Describe

Making careful observations

Predict

Using info to predict if a behavior/event will occur in a certain situation

Explain

Determining causes of behavior

Basic Research

To discover, explore, and understand fundamental human and animal behavior. brain functions, and mental processes without an immediate practical problem in mind

Applied Research

To use psychological principles, theories, and research findings to solve practical, real-world problems in daily life, workplaces, schools, and healthcare

Clinical psychologist

Using application of scientific research to “help people, organizations, and communities function better”, the most famous being clinical practice of psyschology

Experimental psychologist

Having expertise in one or more of the subfields in psychology and doctor-level researchers might be employed to conduct research full-time and teach classes and serving their community in other ways

Journals

Empirical research reports/original research, reviews, systematic reviews

Empirical research reports/original research

Describes one or more new empirical studies conducted by the authors. Introduce a research question, explain why its interestng, review previous research, describe their methods and results, and draw their conclusions

Reviews and systematice reviews

Summarize previously published research on a topic and usually present new ways to organize or explain the results, It is devoted primarily to presenting a new theory

PsychInfo

Focuses on behavioral science, psychology, mental health, and related social sciences with over 5 million peer-reviewd records, including journal articles, book chapters, dissertions, and technical reports

PubMed

Biomedical, clinical medicine, life sciences, and health topics with millions of citations and abstarcts managed by the U.S. National Library of medicine

Google Scholar

Multidisciplinary search across all academic disiplines, web-based scholary literature, patents, and legal opinions with a massive, broad index pulling from publishers, repositores, and open-acess sources

Creating Research question

Interestingness and feasibility

Interestingness

Whether a research question is interesting to people more generally and to the scientific community. Looks at 3 factors: the answer is in doubt, the answer fills a gap in the researvch literature, the answer has important practical implications

Feasibility

The measure of how possible something can be. Affected by time, money, equipment and materials, technical knowledge and skill, and access to research participants

Characteristics of a good hypothesis

Testable and falsifiable, logical, and positive

Testable and Falsifiable

Must collect evidence that will disconfirm the hypothesis is false and test the hypothesis using the methods of science

Logical

Should be informed by previous theories or observations and logical reasoning

Positive

Hypothesis should make a positive statement about the existence of a relationship or effect

Quantitative variable

Quantity that is typically measured by assigning a number to each individual

Categorical variable

Quality that is typically measured by assigning a category label to each individual

Random sampling

Every member of the population has an equal chance of being selected for the sample

Convenience sampling

The sample consists of individuals who happen to be nearby and willing to participate

Type 1 error

False positive, researcher concludes that their results are statistically significant when in reality there is no effect in the population and the results are just due to cance

Type 2 error

A missed oppurtunity, researcher concludes that their results are not statistically significant when in reality there is a real effect in the population and they just missed detecting it

Nuremberg Code

A set of 10 ethical principales for research written in 1947 in conjuction with the Nuremberg trials of Nazi physicians accused of war crimes against prisoners in concentration camps

Belmot report

A set of federal guidelines written in 1978 as a response to the abuses of the Tuskegee study that recogniz 3 important principles in research with humans and formed the basis for federal regulations applied to research

Justice in terms of the Belmont report

Importance of conducting research in a way that distributes risks and benefits fairly across different groups at the societal level

Respect for persons

Acknowledges individuals’ autonomy and protection for those with diminished autonomy and translates to the need for informed consent

Beneficence

Underscores the importance of maximizing the benefits of research while minimizing harms to participants and society

Institutional Review Board (IRB)

A committee that is responsible for reviewing research protocols for potential ethical problems

Exempt research

Research on the effectiveness of normal educational activities, the us of standard psychological measures and surveys of a nonsensitive nature that are administered in a way that maintains confidentiality, and research using existing data from public sources

Expedited Research

Research reviewd by the IRB that is not anonymous and/or may involve potentially stigmatizing information, or invasive or uncomfortable procedures, but exposes participants to risks that are no greater than minimal (risk encountered by healthy peope in daily life or during routine physical or psychological examinations)

Greater than minimal risk research

Research that poses greater than minimal risk to participants and must be reviewed by the full board of IRB members

Informed consent

Obtaining and documenting people’s agreement to participate in a study, having infromed them of everything that might reasonably be expected to affect their decision

Deception

Misinforming participants about the purpose of a study, using confederates using phony equipment lik Milgrim’s shock generator, and presenting participants with false feedback about their performance (e.g. telling them they did poorly on a test when they actually did well)

Debriefing

This is the process of informing research participants as soon as possible of the purpose of the study, revealing any deception, and correcting any other misconceptions they might have as a result of participating

Measurement

The assignment of scores to individuals so that the scores represent some characteristics of the individuals

Psychometrics

A subfield of psychology concerned with the theories and techniques of psychological measurement

Psychological constructs

Psychological variables that represent an individuals mental state or experience, often not directly observable, such as personality traits, emptional states, attitudes, and abilities

Big Five

Openess to experience, conscientiosness, extroversion, agreeableness, neuroticism

Openess to experience

measures a person’s level of intellectual curiosity, creative, and a general preference for novelty and variety

Conscientiousness

refelcting how organized, responsible, hard working, and goal-directed a person is

Extroversion

Measures how much a person is energized by social interaction, external activity, and stimulation

Agreeableness

Measures a person’s general orientation toward prosocial behavior, cooperation, kindness, and social harmony

Neuroticism

Measures a person’s general tendency to experience negative emotions, low emotional stability, and psychological distress

Operational definition

A definitionn of the variable in terms of precisely how it is to be measured

Reliability

Refers to the consistency of a measure

Test-retest reliability

When researcher measure a construct that they assume to be consistent across time, then the source they obtain should also be consistent across time

Validity

The extent to which the scores from a measure represent the variable they are intended to

Face-validity

The ectent to which a measurment method appears, an superficial examination, to measure the construct of interest

Experiment

A type of study designed specifically to answer the question of wether there is a casual relationship between 2 variables

Independent variables

the variable the experimenter manipulates

Dependent variables

The variable the experimenter measures (it is the presumed effect)

Extraneous variables

Any variable other thanthe dependent and independent variable

Treatment group

The set of participants or subjects in a research study who recieve the specific intervention, condition, or variable being tested

Control group

A standard for comparison in a scientific experiment that stays the same and does not recieve the test treatment or intervention

Randomized trial

A study design where participants are assigned by pure chance such as a computer program or coin flip into seperate groups to test the effects of a treatment intervention, or program

Treatment effect

The measurable casual impact that an intervention, experimental condition, or specific treatment has an outcome of interest

Experimental design

between-subject and within-subject experiments

Between-subject experiment

An experiment in which each participants is tested in only one conditions

Within-subject experiments

An experiment in which each participants is tested under all conditions

Internal validity

Refers to the degree to which we can confidently infer a casual relationship between variables

External validity

Refers to the degree to which we can generalize the findings to other circumstances or settings, like the real-wolrd enviornment

Construct validity

One of the “big four” validities, whereby the research question is clearly operational by the study’s methods

Statistical validity

concerns the proper statistical treatment of data and the soundness of the researchers’ statistical conclusions

Correlation research

A type of non-experimental research in which the researcher meausures 2 varaibles and assesses the statistical them with little or no effort to control extraneous variables

Observational research

A study design where researchers monitor, measure, and record naturally occuring behaviors or events without actively manipulating variables or introducing interventions

Spurious correlation

A mathematical relationship where 2 or more variables appear to be linked or move together, but do not have a direct or indirect cause-and-affect relationship

Qualitative research

Research that begins with a less focused research questions, collects large amounts of relatively “unfiltered” data using nonstatistical techniques, such as grounded theory, thematic analysis, critical discourse analysis, or interpretative phenomenological analysisand aims to understand in detail the experience of the research participants

Quantitative research

Research that typicallyy starts with a focused research question or hypothesis, collects a small amount of numerical data from a large number of individuals, describes the resulting data using statistical techniques, and draws general conclusion about some large population

Archival research

A type of primary research that involves locating, evaluating, and analyzing original, uncatalogued, or rare documents preserved in repositories like libraries, museums, government agencies, and coropate archives