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Psychological Research (Part 2 - Hypothesis Formation (This is the first…
Psychological Research
Part 1 - Scientific Method of Research
P's job is to research and produce statements regarding nature and characteristics of human behaviour (however all professional judgments are subjective and therefore require scientific methods of conducting research
The aim of psychological studies:
Explain in detail
Form predictions
Describe
Influence behaviours of people mentally and intentionally
Explain why such behaviour occurs
Suggest ways to change or positively influence those behaviours
This is a systematic method (collection of procedures/principles to form questions, data and evidence collection in order to aide in p's forming conclusions
KEY TERMS
Data Collection Methods
Interviews, surveys, questionnaires, focus groups, observations, documentations, public records
Analysis of Data
This is the procedure of detailed inspection, cleansing relevant data from irrelevant data, transforming the data into processable info with aim of reaching conclusions & decision making
Can be divided into
quantitative
data (surveys and number based, with reviews of documents for numeric info) and
qualitative
data (p's focus on more in depth interviews and a less generalised approach)
The Hypothesis
This an explanation of an occurrence - for it to be a generalised hypothesis, it must be tested through a scientific method.
Hypothesis is usually based on previous observations that cannot be explained objectively with the theories already available
Reaching Conclusions
Using analysed data and facts to form conclusions, keeping in. ind that these conclusions are generalised and biased as well as objective
Focus on the Research
As p's findings are public it is important that they are objective and reliable - the main aim of psychological research is to focus on the subject under consideration without subjectivity, demand characteristics and bias
Variable
Refers to a fact that can be changed in a measurable way
IMPORTANCE OF THE S.M IN PSYCHOLOGY
The topic of interest revolves heavily around emotions/interactions with other human beings which means the data taken is very subjective and cannot be measured directly - consequently the use of s.m helps standardise the whole process and gives a better understanding in a systematic and logical way
These methods mean that the data is replicated under different situations which means that errors can be reduced and a wider scope of knowledge can be obtained which further validates the data
Compared to other natural sciences like chemistry and physics, psychology is considered a social science because of the subjectivity in it and the questions it attempts to answer
Articles written in journals, blogs and papers are all structured with intro, method section, results section, and discussion & conclusion
Part 2 - Hypothesis Formation
This is the first part of the experiment (identifying what the topic of interest is )
Hypthesis = guess of what the relationship between variables in the study will be
P will collects as many facts / evidence as possible and make notes on abs of all perspectives - thorough evaluation then made on observation in order to detect any errors
The P will list a no. of possible explanations and q's and needs answers - then when hypothesis is developed the p will look for ways to confirm or disprove the scientific tests
there has to be a possibility of falsifiability when conducting research - if hypothesis is false then this should be proved, however just because a hypothesis can't be proved false it doest mean it is invalid as future testing could show to disprove the hypothesis
Research must use stats to determine whether h is supported or not - h testing is defined as a type of stat that dictates the probability of h being true/false