BEHV 1003 Critical Thinking and Research Methods Flashcards

Six Thinking Hats (Module 1)

• White (Facts): Concentrates on facts, listening, questioning, and defining information requested or needed but not yet acquired.

• Red (Feelings): Draws on emotion and intuition. Allows for the forwarding of hunches without requiring justification.

• Blue (Big Picture and Planning): Managing the thinking process and making final decisions.

• Green (Nurturing and Creative): Considering proposals, suggestions, alternatives, and what is interesting in an idea.

• Yellow (Optimism): Considering why an idea will work and identifies the strengths of the approach.

• Black (Logical Judge): Considers reasons why something may not work; notes weaknesses and gaps in an idea.

The Scientific Method and Empirical Knowledge

• Empirical Knowledge: Refers to knowledge based on observation, experience, and verifiable data, rather than theory or logic alone.

• The Scientific Method: A flexible and iterative process that evolves as evidence is gathered and evaluated.

• The Empirical Process:

  • Observation: Noting information using the five senses to notice important details in surroundings.

  • Question: Sparked by curiosity regarding observed details.

  • Research: Looking up what is already known to identify answered and unanswered questions.

  • Hypothesis: A tentative explanation to the initial question based on current knowledge.

  • Experiment: Testing the hypothesis through controlled tests to validate observations.

  • Analysis: Comparing expected results with actual results to gather measurable data.

  • Conclusion: Summarizing information to determine if the hypothesis is supported.

The Research Process (10 Steps)

1. Find a Research Idea: Identify a topic and review literature to locate an unanswered question.

2. Form a Hypothesis: Make a clear, testable prediction about what is expected to occur.

3. Determine/Define Variables: Define what will be measured and what will be manipulated.

4. Select Participants/Subjects: Decide who or what will be studied and the selection method.

5. Select a Research Strategy: Identify the overall approach suitable for the research question.

6. Select a Research Design: Plan how the study will be structured and conducted.

7. Conduct the Study: Collect data according to planned procedures.

8. Evaluate the Data: Analyze results to determine if the hypothesis was supported.

9. Report the Results: Communicate findings clearly and accurately.

10. Refine the Research Idea: Use findings to generate new or improved research questions.

Core Concepts of Research Quality

• Reliability: The consistency of research findings when a study is repeated over time; similar results under the same conditions.

• Neutrality: A design that minimizes bias so findings are based on evidence rather than researcher beliefs.

• Validity: How accurately a study measures the intended concept. This is difficult in psychology because concepts are abstract.

• Generalisability: Results are relevant across different groups, settings, or contexts; patterns apply widely.

Defining Research: Origin and Context

• Etymology: Derived from French, meaning "to travel through" or "to survey."

• Aims:

  • Discover facts, events, or behaviors.

  • Interpret or revise existing theories.

  • Develop practical applications.

• Novelty: Research must make a novel contribution by revising or rethinking previous knowledge.

Research in Psychology and Professional Requirements

• Discipline: Psychology is a scientific field; its knowledge of human behavior is acquired through research.

• Registration in Australia: Becoming a registered psychologist requires university training in both practice and the conduct of research.

• Clinical Application: Psychologists must understand, critique, and apply research to reach evidence-based conclusions.

• The Scientist-Practitioner Model: Requires that tools and therapeutic skills are backed by evidence suggesting effectiveness for specific difficulties and populations.

• Essential Skills: Critical thinking, logic, rigor, and objectivity.

Ethical Considerations and Bias

• Historical Bias: Research often lacked diversity (e.g., focused on white middle-aged males).

• Case Study: BMI: Originally based on research involving a narrow demographic.

• Case Study: Seat Belts: Historically designed based on male physiological data.

• Consequences: Dangerous outcomes and difficulties accessing treatment for unrepresented individuals.

Purposes and Types of Research

• Exploration: First step for undefined problems; goal is understanding, not conclusive answers.

• Explanation (Causal): Determines cause-and-effect relationships and "Why."

• Description: Focuses on "How" and "What" (characteristics/populations).

• Fundamental (Basic) Research: Concerned with natural phenomena and broad theory building.

• Applied Research: Finding solutions for immediate, practical problems.

• Analytical Research: Extends descriptive research by suggesting how something happens (e.g., memory and sleep).

• Predictive Research: Speculating on future possibilities based on cause-and-effect analysis.

Critical Realism (Module 2)

• Origin: Initiated by Roy Bhaskar in the late 1970s as a meta-theoretical perspective.

• Stratified Ontology:

  • The Empirical: Experiences and perceptions.

  • The Actual: Events and actions (observed or not).

  • The Deep: Structures, mechanisms, and powers that govern events.

• Modes of Reality:

  • Materially Real: Physical entities (mountains).

  • Ideally Real: Conceptual entities (beliefs, discourse).

  • Artefactually Real: Synthesis of material and social (computers).

  • Socially Real: Social structures (class, gender).

• Aetiology: Rejects Humean regularity. Laws are seen as tendencies.

  • $Law = (Genuine) \, Tendency$

• Epistemic Fallacy: The collapse of ontology into epistemology (what is reduced to what can be said).

Methods of Acquiring Knowledge

• Method of Tenacity: Truth based on habit or superstition (e.g., "Opposites attract").

• Method of Intuition: Truth based on hunches or gut feelings.

• Method of Authority: Relying on experts. Includes the Method of Faith (unquestioning trust).

• Rational Method (Rationalism): Seeking answers via logical reasoning.

  • Requires Premise Statements and Arguments.

• Empirical Method (Empiricism): Using direct sensory experience to obtain knowledge.

Science versus Pseudoscience

• Refutability: Science uses testable and refutable hypotheses; pseudoscience discounts negative results.

• Evidence: Science requires unbiased evidence; pseudoscience relies on testimonials.

• Change: Science evolves; pseudoscience is stagnant.

• Grounding: Science links to past theories; pseudoscience creates new, unconnected disciplines.

Philosophical Frameworks in Research

• Ontology (Study of Being):

  • Naive Realist: One true reality and perfect correspondence in language.

  • Structural Realist: One reality, but structures can change.

  • Critical Realist: One reality exists but is imperfectly understood by humans.

  • Bounded Relativist: One shared reality within a group, but different across groups.

  • Relativist: Each individual constructs their own unique reality.

• Epistemology (Study of Knowledge):

  • Objectivist: Reality is independent of the mind.

  • Constructionist: Meaning comes from engagement with the world.

  • Subjectivist: Believing determines what is seen.

• Philosophical Perspectives (Paradigms):

  • Positivism: Only sensory, scientific knowledge is true.

  • Postpositivism: Logic of falsification (Karl Popper).

  • Interpretivism: People and institutions are unique from natural laws.

  • Critical Theory: Challenges norms to bring about change; takes an ideological stance.

  • Pragmatism: Knowledge value is judged by how well it works (e.g., Mercator map).

Grounded Theory

• Founders: Barney Strauss and Anson Glazer (1960s).

• Goal: Theory development from social interaction data.

• Steps:

  1. Determine Initial Questions.

  2. Theoretical Sampling (analysis-driven recruitment).

  3. Open Coding (Verbatim transcription and excerpts).

  4. Constant Comparative Method (Comparing participants/times).

  5. Axial Coding (Grouping codes into categories).

  6. Theoretical Saturation (No new insights gained).

  7. Selective Coding (Defining the core category).

  8. Final Theory Construction.

Narrative Analysis

• Definition: Qualitative method focused on how participants construct stories.

• Types of Narratives: Topical Stories (specific moments), Personal Narratives (extended accounts), Entire Life Stories.

• Nested Story Structure (Wendy Pattison):

  1. Abstract: Core thesis.

  2. Orientation: Time, place, characters.

  3. Complicating Action: Plot/sequence.

  4. Evaluation: Meaning of the event.

  5. Resolution: Outcome.

  6. Coda: Ending.

Transcription Conventions

• Pauses: Denote 3 seconds or more by "…"

• Stressed words: Bold.

• Shouted words: CAPITALIZED.

• Whispered words: Italicized.

• Format: Wide right margins, double-spaced, continuous line numbering.

Module 3: Quantitative Research Framework

• Descriptive Methods: Summarizing variables (e.g., levels of satisfaction).

• Correlational Methods: Relationships between variables, not causation.

• Experimental Methods: Manipulating variables to test cause-and-effect.

• Mixed Methods Types: Convergent parallel, Embedded, Explanatory sequential, Exploratory sequential.

• Credibility in Qualitative Research:

  • Dependability: Clerical consistency (Reliability).

  • Confirmability: Findings shaped by data, not bias (Objectivity).

  • Reflexivity: Reflection on researcher influence.

  • Transferability: Applicability to other contexts.

  • Triangulation: Drawing on multiple sources.

Module 4: Qualitative Techniques "Windows of Perception"

• Discourse Analysis (DA): Method for rigorous interpretation of written text.

  • Social Constructs: Reality taught/reinforced via interaction (e.g., "Big boys don't cry").

• Ethnography: A study in culture via Participant Observation.

  • Field notes are the essential output.

  • Case Study: The Third Battle of Ypres (failure to visit the front led to tactical error).

• Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA): Focuses on immediate experience and how people make sense of happenings.

  • Case Study: Nutritional Care in Dementia ($7$ participants).

• Vignettes: Theoretical stories used to get participants to reflect on experience (e.g., "Mary Smith" in manufacturing safety).

• Thematic Analysis: Reducing data into themes.

  • Leximancer Software: Statistical grouping of word occurrence (e.g., Alice through the Looking Glass character analysis).

Study on Critical Thinking Instruction (Bensley et al.)

• Critical Thinking Definition: Reflective thinking involved in the evaluation of evidence (Bensley 1998).

• Components: Skills (judgment) and Dispositions (motivation).

• Groups studied: SRM (CT-infused), RM I (Standard), RM II (Experimental focus).

• Results: SRM group showed significant gains ($4.50$ score increase) compared to RM I ($-0.47$) and RM II ($0.00$).

• Effect Sizes: Large effects ($d = 1.53$ and $d = 1.63$).

• Conclusion: Writing research reports alone is insufficient; explicit CT instruction is required.

Experimental Research Strategy

• Goal: Establish cause-and-effect relationship.

• Primary Elements:

  • Manipulation: Purposefully changing the Independent Variable (IV).

  • Measurement: Observing the Dependent Variable (DV).

  • Comparison: Comparing scores across treatment conditions.

  • Control: Managing extraneous variables.

• Causation Problems:

  • Third-Variable Problem: Unmeasured variable influences both (e.g., Heat causing both crime and ice cream consumption).

  • Directionality Problem: Unclear which variable is cause/effect.

• Variables:

  • Extraneous Variables: Any non-IV/DV variables.

  • Confounding Variables: Extraneous variables that influence DV and vary systematically with the IV.

Design Comparison: Between-Subjects and Within-Subjects

• Between-Subjects Design: Different groups for different treatments.

  • Challenge: Individual differences (Groups must be equivalent).

  • Variance: Large between-group variance is good; large within-group variance is bad.

• Within-Subjects Design: Same participants for all treatments.

  • Challenge: Order effects (Practice, Fatigue, Carry-over).

  • Threats to Internal Validity:

    1. History: Events between measurements.

    2. Maturation: Natural growth over time.

    3. Instrumentation: Changes in measuring tools.

    4. Regression toward the mean: Extremes move back to average.

• Counterbalancing: Changing treatment order to minimize order effects.

Questions & Discussion Highlights

• Social Media Discussion: Brain development in childhood (amygdala sensitivity to peer feedback) suggests vulnerability to social media before age 16.

• Positivism vs. Social Science: Natural scientists often fail to account for the subjective nature of human values using only positivist methods.