ch 1 & 2: psychology and scientific method

what are the 5 ways of knowing?

1. intuition: it feels true

2. authority: someone credible said so

3. rationalism: it follows logically from what i already accept

4. empiricism: i observed it

5. the scientific method: observation, done systematically, checked by others

systematic empiricism

observations are planned, recorded, and structured to answer a question

empirical questions

questions that can be answered by systematic observation

public knowledge

methods and results are published in enough detail that others can check. critisize, and repeat them

pseudoscience

activitices or beliefs that appear to be scientific but are not. they are missing at least one of the three features of science

falsifiable

there are observations that count as evidence against the claim

• not making a claim about the world

goals of science - to describe

making careful observations

goals of science - to predict

once observing some regularity that two behaviours or events are systematically related, we use that info to predict whether an event or behaviour will occur in a certain situation

goals of science - to explain

determining the causes of behaviour

basic research

wants to understand human behaviour or psychological processes

applied research

wants to address practical problems

what is the scientific method?

1. formulate a testable hypothesis

2. select the method and design the study

3. collect the data

4. analyze the data and draw conclusions

5. report findings

research hypothesis

a specific and falsifiable prediction regarding the relationship between or among two or more variables

how to develop a research hypothesis?

getting ideas for research

• solving real-world problems

• using observaion and intutition

  • using existing research

what makes a good research q?

interesting

• the answer is in doubt

• it fills a gap in the research literature

• the answer has practical implication

feasible: time, money, equipment, skills, ethics, and access to participants

inductive method

the process of getting ideas about the relationships among variables by observing specific facts

• data-driven

deductive method

teh process of using a theory to generate specific ideas that can be tested through research

• theory-driven

theory

a coherent explanation of interpretation of one or more phenomena

variable

anything that varies across people or situation and can be measured

operational definition

• a definition of the variable in terms of precisely how it is to be measured

• abstract constructs (cognitive capacity) that cannot be directly observed, the operational definition transforms them into something that can be observed and measured (Raven’s matrices)

experimental study

the researcher manipulates one variable (independent) and measures another (dependent), with random assignment

non-experimental study

nothing is manipulated; variables are measured as they occur and the relationship between them is described

internal validity

extent to which changed in the dependent variable can confidently be attributed to the effect of the independent variable, rather than to the potential effect of confounding variables

• high in lab study

• high in field experiment*

external validity

measured the extent to which research findings can be generalized to other participants, settings, or ways of measuring variables

• high in field study and field experiment*

central tendency

the point in the distribution around which the data are centered

• mean, median, mode

dispersion (spread)

extent to which teh scores are tightly clustered around or spread out away from the central tendency

• range, varience, standard deviation

inferential stats

ask whether a result found in a sample can be generalized to population it came from

statistiaclly significant

means a difference or relationship this large would unlikely (less than 5%) if there were really nothing there

type i and type ii

Type I error: false positive

• Concludes results are statistically significant, but actually no real affect

Type II error: missed opportunity

• Concludes results are not statistically significant, but there's a real effect and just missed detecting it

correlation

described the relationship between two variables

• correlation coefficient r

  • strength and direction of the relationship between two variables (-1.00 (one variable increases, other decrease) to +1.00 (both variables increases)

meta-analysis

provides a quantitative summary by combining the results from multiple studies

• uses effect sizes