Psychological Research

Psychological Research

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  Psychological Research
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  The Scientific Method The scientific method is the approach used by psychologists to systematically acquire knowledge and understanding about behavior and other phenomena of interest  It is consist of four main steps 1. identifying questions of interest 2. formulating an explanation 3. carrying out research designed to support or refute the explanation, 4. communicating the findings
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  Conducting Psychological Research Archival Research – in which existing data, such as census documents, college records and newspaper clippings, are examined to test a hypothesis.  Naturalistic Observation – in which an investigator simply observes some naturally occurring behavior and does not make a change in the situation.  Survey Research – in which people chosen to represent a larger population are asked a series of questions about their behavior, thoughts, or attitudes.
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  Conducting Psychological Research (Cont’d) Correlational Research – in which the relationship between two sets of variables is examined to determine whether they are associated or correlated  The Case Study – An in-depth intensive investigation of an individual or small group of people
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  Conducting Psychological Research (Cont’d) Experimental Research – The change that an experimenter deliberately produces in a situation.  Experimental group – any group participating in an experiment that receives a treatment  Control group – a group participating in an experiment that receives no treatment  Independent variable – the variable that is manipulated by an experimenter  Dependent variable – that is measured and is expected to change as a result of changes caused by the experimenter’s manipulation of the independent variable.  Random assignment of participants to condition – a procedure in which participants assigned to different experimental groups of “conditions” on the basis of chance and chance alone.