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Have you ever conducted your own experiment? You might have done so without even realizing 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 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.
Research, freepik.com/vectorjuice
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 purpose of these organisations is to ensure that research meets quality scientific standards. They:
This makes research easier to understand and consistent across the field of study and attempt to improve the quality of research by regulating the peer-review process.
Reading background information based on the area that the researcher is interested in is a crucial step of research. This should be the initial step that the researcher should take so that they:
A good hypothesis should be operationalised and identify the independent and dependent variables:
The investigation, freepik.com/pikisuperstar
There are different methods of sampling used in research methods, and these include:
The aim of using the sampling method is to try and obtain as representative as possible sample of the target population. If the sample is representative of the population, then the research findings can be considered generalisable. 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:
Experimental designs allow us to test the hypothesis and help us allocate participants to the correct groups.
The research types in psychology are:
There are several methods used to determine how participants will be allocated to experimental conditions. Ideally, your participants represent the target group you're investigating, and this is done by taking a sample of participants. They are representative of your target group, which avoids issues of bias and increases generalisability.
They can be assigned in multiple ways:
Research investigating patients with depression are 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.
Data analysis process, freepik.com/jcompExamples of research methods used in psychology are:
Experimental research is a type of research that 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.
This 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 a 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.
This 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 activities of the participants whilst recording their behaviour).
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 researcher is interested in investigating. Usually, various research techniques such as interviews, questionnaires and observations are used to collect data.
Some examples of different types of interviews used in psychology research are:
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.
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).
To make sure 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 that someone else could replicate the study, and it is vital in research.
The purpose of the research analysis in psychology is to establish if the null hypothesis should be accepted or rejected. The data analysis method used depends on whether the data is:
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 are the tools and process of carrying out research to support or disprove theories in research.
Examples of four types of research methods are:
Examples of research methods used in psychology are:
A research design is a part of the research method. Research methods give a detailed overall description of how the research was done. Research designs are determined by the context of where the research is being carried out.
Designs usually fall into three categories:
It is important to understand research methods because:
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