Lecture 3: Research in Psychology

Online quiz

• 10%

• Sunday 23 February 7 am - 10 pm

  20 multiple choice questions in 30 minutes

• 2 attempts → higher mark counts

• randomised questions

• content from week 1-3

• questions from chapters in the textbook

• able to go backwards

• will close automatically after 30 minutes

• closed book

How do psychologists know what they know?

• research

Resguish what is working and what is not as well as how to improve

Identify innovative solution each skill are a critical skill employers seek as they give access to

• understand what is legitimate knowledge you can trust

• distind to personal and professional problems and problems humans are facing

Fact

• something that can be checked and backed up by evidence

Opinion

• something based on a belief that is not based in evidence

Why is it important to distinguish fiction?

• bias

• myths

• truth and honesty

What is evidence?

• data supporting a theory

• repeated results in experiments

Scientific research

• no universal agreement of what it is as it has changed over time

• 1500 french word recherche

  • to search, seek

• 1400 Latin scientifica

  • making knowledge, to be distinguished

• systematic exploration of reality to discover and interpret information to advance knowledge and deepen our understanding of a topic or issue

• reliaable and techable knowledge

• Creation of new knowledge

• the use of existing knowledge in ne and creative way to generate new concepts ‘

• including synthesis and analysis of previous research ‘

• more valid perspective

  • have a sound basis in logic or fact

• applying new knowledge to solve human problems

• expanding our perspective

• imagination - Einstein

2 main research approaches

• Quantitative

• Qualitative

• each research strategy is based on different assumptions or perspectives about the nature of the world and knowledge

• what constitutes scientific research

• which is appropriate

• which is a valued perspective

Ontology

• nature of the world

• what exists/real?

• lens

  • where researchers look for explanations and what kind of questions they ask

Epistemology

• nature of knowledge

• what do we know about being and reality

• what can we know about self and the world

• what is valid knowledge i.e. evidence

• Positivism

  • collapse of the objectivist worldview (positivism) that somained the modern era

• Constructions

  • emerging in its place

  • see all information and all stories as human creations

• learning about such things continually re examining beliefs about beliefs becomes the most important learning task

Quantitative

• Positivism

• statistics

• predominant

  • emerged in response to triumphant advances of natural science

  • Ontology

    • ultimate singular truth

    • reality is an objective reflection of the truth

  • Epistemology

    • search for the truth

  • objective reflection

  • universal laws within peoples mind (internal processes

  • people separated and isolated

  • representative of reality

  • discovered

  • stable

  • ahistorical and acultural

  • passively described by language

  • objective and neutral

  • Research

    • discovering universal and casual laws

    • internal states and processes

    • Deduction and topdown confirmatory

    • testing hypotheses

    • reduction to variables conceptulise and quantify

    • empirical laboratory methods

    • researcher seperate

    • focus individuals

  • test theories

  • data

  • analysis

  • methods

    • experiments

    • correlational

    • survey

Qualitative

• Constructionism

• new world view

• emerged end of the 20th century

• advances in quantam physics and mechanisd

  • challenged empricists assumptions

  • critiques from social psychologists and marginalised groups about and practical applicability and relevance of knowledge produced

• Ontology

  • reality is constructed by human interaction

  • people actively interpret information based on individual historically developed and cultural specific experiences

  • many different realities

• Epistemology

  • understanding the meaning people assign to their experiences

• multiple and relative truths

• subjective = constructed

• unkowable directly

• mental processes revealed within process of interaction

• interaction with environment

• invented

• changes

• historical and cultural

• actively constructed through language

• shaped by interactions serves interest groups

• Research

  • understanding meaning people assign to experience

  • interactions between people, behaviour, stories and talk

  • induction, interactive and bottom-up

  • exploring interpretations

  • complexity

  • methods in real life setting and interaction

  • researcher interacts

  • interrelations between people and society

• develop theories

• data

  • words

  • actions

• analysis

  • interpretation

• methods

  • in depth interviews

  • observations in real life

Induction

• systematically observe and inquire what is going on in a situation

• systematically identify patterns and relationships

• develop theories

Deduction

• use already ecxsting scientific knowledge regarding a topic or issue

• propose a testable explanation or theory for a phenomena

• conduct a study ti test the hypothesis

• draw conclusions

mixed methods

• utilises both

qualitative research has been devalued largely missing from inquiry criticism of irrelevance

Research methods

• quantitative

  • experiments

  • aim is explain cause and effect relationships to predict how people are behaving

  • manipulating small number of variables in controlling conditions

  • Hypothesis

    • predicting how variables are related

    • if x happens y will happen

  • measurement → operational definition

    • observable behaviour that can be measured

  • Manipulating X to see whether Y changes

  • Independent Variable

    • what will cause change in DV

    • manipulated

  • Dependent Variable

    • measurable

    • What effect is caused by IV

  • Cofounding or extraneous variables

    • variables that may cause DV

  • aims to identify relationships between two or more variables

  • requires numbers = measurements

    • observations, case studies or surveys

  • measures extent to which two or more variables are related

    • predict one another

    • strength of relationship

  • zero correlation

    • no or little relationship between variables

  • correlation

    • relationship between variables

    • can be positive or negative

  • strength of relationship

    • the closer dots to line = the stronger relationship

  • Surveys

    • quick way to collect lots of information about current state of

      • opinions/attitudes

      • perspectives

      • experiences

      • behaviour

    • asking people using questionnaires

      • mail and phone

      • online

      • face to face

    • asking smaller subset of population = sample

      • representative of population

      • sampling errors or biases = sample differs from population results invalid

    • Questions

      • closed questions

      • open ended

      • carefully worded → wording effect due to word associations

    • Response bias

      • way participants feel they are expected to answer or in systematic ways rather than stating actual ways

      • acquiescent RB → agree

      • socially desirable RB → acceptable ways

      • Illusory superiority → better than average

    • Response rate

      • varies 30-50% → less commonly

Qualitative