Have you ever conducted your own experiment? You might have done so without even realising it! Maybe you wanted to find out how long it would take you to get something done or if practising something twice a week would be enough to help you get better. How did you go about figuring these things out? Research methods help psychologists study the mind and the world around them.
- We are going to cover research methods within psychology.
- First, we will explore the different steps in psychology research methods and cover the aims, hypothesis, and background information in research methods.
- Following this, we will discuss qualitative research methods and quantitative research methods, highlighting the difference between the two.
- We will then discuss the different designs in research methods.
- Finally, we will cover research analysis methods and ethics in psychology research methods.
Fig. 1 - Psychologists use research methods to conduct their studies.
Steps in Psychology Research Methods
Research methods are the foundation for scientific investigations. They allow scientists and psychologists to investigate the world and advance knowledge in their field. This area of psychology makes up the base of carrying out research. For instance, psychologists can use their knowledge of research methods to determine the most appropriate, reliable and valid method to select participants, design studies or analyse data.
There are scientific, professional organisations such as the British Psychological Society (BPS) and the American Psychological Association (APA) set up to provide guidelines for the scientific method. These organisations aim to ensure that research meets quality scientific standards.
They:
- Make sure that researchers do not commit ethical breaches
- Provide guidelines on reporting findings;
- This ensures that research is written similarly.
This makes research easier to understand and consistent across the field of study and attempts to improve the quality of research by regulating the peer-review process.
Aims, Hypothesis, and Background Information
Reading background information based on the area the researcher is interested in is a crucial research step. This should be the initial step that the researcher should take so that they:
- Familiarise themselves with the topic
- Form an aim: the purpose of their research
- Give a rationale for their research: how will it add to the existing knowledge? Why are they conducting the study?
- Form a hypothesis: a predictive statement of the research results the researcher expects to find. This is usually formed by understanding existing theories or previous results found.
A good hypothesis should be operationalised and identify the independent and dependent variables:
- The Independent variable is the variable that is manipulated.
- The dependent variable is the variable that is measured.
An operationalised hypothesis means that the reader should be able to understand what the variables are and how they were measured.
Fig. 2 - Understanding the current research on a topic is crucial to understanding what to investigate next for researchers.
Design Research Methods
There are different methods of sampling used in research methods, and these include:
- Volunteer sampling
- Opportunity sampling
- Random sampling
- Snowball sampling
- Stratified sampling
- Self-selected sampling
- Systematic sampling
The aim of using the sampling method is to try and obtain as representative as possible sample of the target population. The research findings can be considered generalisable if the sample is representative of the population.
Generalisability is a sub-type of external validity.
The research design is determined by the context of where the research is being carried out. The researcher also needs to consider if the research variables are naturally occurring or if they will be manipulated.
Designs usually fall into three categories:
- Independent groups design
- Repeated measures design
- Matched-pair design
Experimental Research Design: Psychology
Experimental designs allow us to test the hypothesis and help us allocate participants to the correct groups. An example of a research method used in psychology is experimental research, which involves a researcher manipulating the independent variable to see how it affects the dependent variable.
This is usually done by measuring the changes that occur due to the manipulation. Then, researchers can identify how and what factors can affect the phenomena that the researcher is interested in.
Types of Research in Psychology
There are various research types in psychology:
- Lab experiment - research is carried out in a controlled, standardised laboratory setting, and the effects of manipulating a variable are observed.
- Field experiment - research is conducted in a natural setting, and the effects of manipulating a variable are observed.
- Natural experiment - research is carried out in a natural setting, and the researcher attempts to observe the effects of naturally occurring variables (there is no manipulation). Participants are randomly allocated to conditions.
- Quasi-experiment - similar to natural experiments. However, the participants are not randomly allocated as the independent variable is a feature of the participants.
Several methods are used to determine how participants will be allocated to experimental conditions. Ideally, your participants represent the target group you're investigating, which is done by taking a sample of participants. They represent your target group, which avoids bias and increases generalisability.
They can be assigned in multiple ways:
- Random assignment - participants are randomly allocated into experimental conditions.
- Selective assignment - sometimes, due to inclusion/exclusion criteria, it is not possible to randomly assign participants to groups.
- Control groups and treatment groups -participants with the illness associated with the treatment are usually allocated to treatment groups, and people who do not would be allocated to the control group. This can also be randomly allocated.
Research investigating patients with depression is randomly assigned to a control group (no intervention) or the treatment group (cognitive-behavioural therapy for 12 weeks).
The research aims to be able to assign participants into groups randomly. This is so that bias is less likely to influence the results.
Correlational Research
Correlational research is a form of research carried out in psychology to measure the relationship/association between two variables. From the results of correlational research, researchers can identify if there is a positive, negative, or no relationship between the variables. This essentially provides information on how and if changes in one variable will affect the other.
If there is a positive relationship between two variables, the researcher would expect to observe that if there is an increase in one variable, the other one will also increase.
- Survey research: essentially a questionnaire that is used for data collection. In this data collection method, questions are pre-determined and sent to participants to complete.
Observational Research
Observational research is when a researcher observes and records the behaviour of participants. There are different forms of observational research, such as covert (researcher does not disclose to participants that they are being observed) or participant (researcher integrates and takes part in participants' activities whilst recording their behaviour).
Case Studies
Case studies are a form of research method used to collect in-depth data. This type of research investigates a single person or a sub-group of people who share a common characteristic that the researcher is interested in investigating. Usually, various research techniques such as interviews, questionnaires and observations are used to collect data.
- Interviews: involves a researcher asking participants to answer questions. Similar to other research methods used in psychology, there are different types of interviews.
Some examples of different types of interviews used in psychology research are:
- structured interviews
- unstructured interviews
- focus groups
Ethics in Psychology Research Methods
There are ethical standards that researchers need to make sure that researchers must follow. This is to prevent research from harming participants. Before the revision of ethical standards in research, research was found sometimes to cause harm to participants.
In Milgram's (1963) study, participants were tricked into giving electric shocks to fake victims (actors in the experiment). This caused severe psychological trauma upon following up on the participants' well-being.
Some examples of ethical standards that research needs to follow:
Permission to participate in research needs to be asked after knowing what they will do in the research. Before agreeing, researchers must inform participants of any risks. In public settings, consent is not always given; however, as people act naturally, the British Psychological Society (BPS) deems it acceptable.
- Confidentiality: researchers must keep participants anonymous in their reports; they must not be identifiable.
- Rights to withdraw/Debriefing
At any point of the study (including after), participants must have the right to stop being in the research and have their data removed. Once the study has ended, they need to be debriefed, which explains the study thoroughly (especially in the cases of deception).
- Deception: there must be a strong justification for informed consent to be subverted through deception if researchers wish to keep the nature of the study hidden (according to the BPS), and there must be no alternative procedure that allows for informed consent.
- Protection from harm: the risk of the experiment should not be higher than what they would experience in their everyday lives (although this is hard to determine since one participant may work with dangerous machinery for a living, whereas another may work from home).
To ensure that the research can be considered reliable or valid, the researchers need to make sure that the research follows a standardised protocol.
Standardised protocol means that the same instructions and conditions of the experiment, such as the time of the experiment, are used for all participants.
When reporting research, the researcher must report all the materials used in the experiment. This should be written in enough detail so someone else could replicate the study, which is vital in research.
Research Analysis Methods
Research analysis in psychology aims to establish if the null hypothesis should be accepted or rejected. The data analysis method depends on whether the data is qualitative, quantitative or mixed.
Qualitative Research Methods
Qualitative research methods include methods that best collect and analyse non-numerical data and are great for a more detailed, subjective view of topics of interest. The most common methods are content analysis and thematic analysis.
Quantitative Research Methods
Quantitative research methods include methods that best collect and analyse numerical data and are great for establishing causal relationships and generalising results in research. The most common methods are inferential tests to test the hypothesis.
Mixed research methods use a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods for research analysis.
The typical data analysis method uses descriptive and inferential tests; the type used is determined by the conditions of the data collected. Descriptive tests are typically analysed in all quantitative data.
For example, normally distributed data use parametric tests, whereas non-normal data typically use non-parametric tests.
Research Methods - Key takeaways
- Research methods are the foundation for scientific investigations. There are scientific, professional organisations such as the British Psychological Society (BPS) and the American Psychological Association (APA) set up to provide guidelines for the scientific method.
- The initial step of research is to do background research; from this, aims and hypotheses can be formed.
- The design of research methods should consider many aspects of research, such as participant selection and allocation to experimental groups, research design, ethics and procedures.
- The research analysis method should consider how the data will be analysed and how it will be tested to see if the hypothesis can be accepted or rejected.
- Research analysis methods include qualitative, quantitative, and mixed research method approaches. Qualitative research methods include methods that best collect and analyse non-numerical data, and quantitative research methods include methods that best collect and analyse numerical data.
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