Introduction to Research: Hypothesis, Personality Traits, PICO, and Search Strategies

Hypothesis Formulation\n* The speaker's hypothesis links a chosen characteristic (e.g., personality trait) with specific variables for maintaining existing life.\n* Students will formulate their own hypotheses based on literature review and data analysis.\n* An example hypothesis given is: "Extroversion will be highly correlated with one of the variables from that list."\n\n### Personality Traits and Research Gaps\n* Definition Requirement: For the actual report, students must cite academic sources for all definitions of personality traits.\n* For immediate understanding, students are encouraged to use Gen AI to find clear, understandable definitions (one sentence) for five personality traits.\n* Identifying Research Gaps: All research aims to identify and fill gaps in existing literature.\n * When searching later, students might find extensive information on personality traits in general or in relation to social media, but less on specific traits or their outcomes for university students.\n * The goal is to find what the current literature "doesn't tell you" and how the student's research or data analysis can fill that gap.\n * This gap identification will directly inform the hypothesis.\n* Student Interest in Traits (Examples):\n * Openness to Experience: Identified as a potentially interesting trait to write about, especially in relation to social media.\n * Conscientiousness: Appealed due to its "careful versus careless" aspect, prompting thought on its relation to social media.\n * Extraversion: Chosen because it relates to being "outgoing and sociable," and its potential impact from social media is relevant.\n* The hypothesis will be a prediction (e.g., extroversion's high correlation with a variable), which will then be compared to findings from literature and data.\n\n### Assessment and Templates\n* Students are strongly recommended to download the course template immediately.\n * This template must be filled out before writing the literature review.\n * A screenshot of the completed template must be included in the assessment.\n* Literature Sources: It is recommended to include $8$ to $12$ literature sources in the template.\n* APA Seventh Formatting Template: Highly recommended for the actual report writing.\n * It includes a pre-formatted cover page that students can fill in (e.g., student name, Bond University).\n * It provides instructions and examples for each section of the report.\n * A screenshot of the completed template is submitted at the end of this template as part of the assessment.\n\n### Research Question and PICO Framework\n* The research question is located on the first page of the task sheet, near the bottom.\n* PICO Framework: Used in quantitative research to define the research parameters.\n * $P$: Population\n * $I$: Intervention\n * $C$: Comparison\n * $O$: Outcome\n* In qualitative research, a similar framework, $PIC$ or $PCC$, is used.\n\n### PICO Examples and Application to Current Research\n* Example from Megan's Research:\n * $P$ (Population): Adolescents\n * $I$ (Intervention): Healthy dietary plan\n * $C$ (Comparison): Unhealthy dietary plan\n * $O$ (Outcome): Depression (investigating its relationship with dietary plans)\n* Applying PICO to the Current Assessment:\n * $P$ (Population): University undergraduate students (explicitly stated in the research question and must be in the hypothesis).\n * $I$ (Intervention): Personality traits (also referred to as the independent variable or predictor).\n * $O$ (Outcome): Social media (also referred to as the dependent variable).\n * $C$ (Comparison): In this context, the comparison isn't a separate intervention but occurs through comparing and contrasting different personality traits or levels within the data.\n* These three core components (Population, Intervention, Outcome/Social Media) must be consistently clear throughout the research question and hypothesis.\n* Hypothesis Flexibility: The initial hypothesis (e.g., regarding neuroticism being negative) is a starting point and does not need to be definitively "right." Disproving the hypothesis can lead to interesting discussions, explaining why initial assumptions were incorrect based on data and literature.\n\n### Search Strategies: Truncation and Boolean Operators\n* Truncation/Wildcard ($*$):\n * Used to search for multiple word endings simultaneously.\n * Example: depress* will find "depression," "depressive," "depression symptoms," etc.\n * Another example: behavio*r to capture both American (behavior) and British (behaviour) spellings.\n* Boolean Operators (Fancy Words for Search Commands):\n * Double Quotation Marks ($''$):\n * Used to search for an exact phrase.\n * Example: "dietary pattern" ensures the database looks for "dietary" and "pattern" appearing together, not separately.\n * Wildcards can be used within quotation marks if needed (e.g., "social media learn*").\n * $AND$ Operator: Requires both specified terms to be present in the search results.\n * Example: neuroticism AND "social media" will return articles containing both terms.\n * $OR$ Operator: Requires either of the specified terms to be present in the search results.\n * Example: agreeableness OR extroversion will return articles containing either "agreeableness" or "extroversion."

\n### Developing and Refining Search Strings\n* Search String Construction: Students will develop a search string for personality traits for use in a database.\n * Gen AI tools can assist in generating search strings suitable for databases like PubMed.\n* Example Search String Structure:\n * ("big five personality traits" OR agreeableness OR extraversion) AND ("social media" OR TikTok OR Instagram)\n * This string tells the database to find papers that include either the exact phrase "big five personality traits" or "agreeableness" or "extraversion" (grouped by $OR$). \n * Additionally, the papers must also include either the exact phrase "social media" or "TikTok" or "Instagram" (also grouped by $OR$).\n * Parentheses are crucial for grouping and logical order of operations.\n * A potential issue mentioned: "five" might be written as a number in some sources, requiring the search to potentially include both "big five personality traits" OR "big 5 personality traits" for comprehensiveness.\n* Refinement Process:\n * If the search yields zero results, the string needs to be made more general (less specific).\n * If the search yields too many results (e.g., $1,500$), the string needs to be made more specific (adding more terms, using AND more, or more precise phrases).\n* Testing Databases: The instructor demonstrated testing a search string in Psych INFO, emphasizing the initial step of selecting the relevant database (e.g., APA Psych Info).