Zusammenfassung der Ressource
The Research Enterprise in Psychology
- The Scientific Approach to Behaviour
- Goals of the Scientific Enterprise
- Three sets of interrelated goals:
Measurement and Description,
Understanding and Prediction, and
Application and Control
- Measurement and description- Having to make measurable concepts
- Understanding and prediction- During this process you have to make a hypothesis and also have variables
- Application and control- Apply what you have researched and put together a theory
- Steps in a
Scientific
Investigation
- Formulate a Testable Hypothesis
- Select the Research Method and Design the study
- Collect Data
- Analyze the data and draw conclusions
- Report what you have researched- usually journals are used
- Advantages of the Scientific Approach
- Clarity and precision
- Intolerance of error
- Looking for causes: Experimental Research
- Independent and dependant Variables
- Independent-
experimenter depends on
the impact of other
variables
- Dependent- affected by
manipulation of the
independent variable
- Extraneous Variables
- Extraneous variables- any
variables other than the
independent one
- Confounding variables- two var.
that are linked together which
make it difficult to sort out their
specific effects
- Random assignment- subjects
occur when all subjects have
an equal chance of being
assigned to any group.
- Variations is Designing Experiments
- Only using one group
of subjects who serve
as their own control
group
- Can manipulate more
than one independent
variable in a single
experiment
- In a single study there can
be one than one dependent
variable.
- Looking for Links: Descriptive/Correlational Research
- Naturalistic
Observation
- -Observation of behaviour without any
interruption
- Less artificial than experiments
- Reactivity- subject's behaviour is altered by
the presence of an observer
- Hard to put naturalistic observations into numerical data
- Case Studies
- in-depth investigation
of a subject
- Clinical research depends on case-studies
- Surveys
- Advantages and Disadvantages of
Descriptive/Correlational
Research
- Give researchers a way to explore more
questions that they would not recieve in
experimental
- Disadvantage-can not control the effects and isolate cause
- Looking for Conclusions: Statistics and Research
- Descriptive Statistics
- Used to organize and
summarize data
- Central Tendency- mean, median,
and mode. Using an average
- can be positive or
negatively skewed
- Variability - used to estimate scores
- Standard Deviation, variability, normal distribution, percentile
- Correlation- two variables that are related to eachother
- Inferential
Statistics
- used to interpret data and draw
conclusions
- Statistical significance is said to exist when the
probability that observed findings are due to
chance is very low
- hypothesis testing involves deciding whether
observed findings support the researcher's
hypothesis
- Looking for Flaws: Evaluating Research
- Meta-Analysis
- Combination of the statistical results of many studies of the same
question, yielding an estimate of the size and consistency of a variable's
effects
- Allow to check on the
reliability of a finding
- Sampling Bias
- Sample- collecting of subjects
selected for observation is in
empirical study.
- Population- larger
collection of people or
animals
- Sampling bias: happens when a sample is not representative of
the population from which it was drawn.
- Placebo Effects
- participants' expectations lead them to
experience some change even though they recieve
empty, fake treatment
- Experimenter Bias
- Occurs when a researcher's expectations or
preferences about the outcome of a study influence
the results obtained.
- Double-blind- research strategy
in which neither subjects nor
experimenters known which
subjects are in the experimetal or
control group
- Looking at Ethics:Do the ends Justify the means?
- Ethical Guidelines for research in Psychology in Canada
- Principle 1: Respect for the dignity of Persons
- Principle 2: Responsible caring
- Principle 3: Integrity in Relationships
- Principle 4: Responsibility to Society