Research methods in PsychologyAlthough you might not think about it immediately, how you conduct psychological research is at least as important (in fact more important) than subject of the research you conduct. Here is a quick introduction to some of the key ideas in psychological research. Show
Confounding Variables - variables that do actually have an effect on the DV. A confounding variable could be an extraneous variable that has not been controlled. If the IV is the only thing that is changed then it must be responsible for any change in the DV. (N.B. - if we fail to identify & control for an extraneous variable, and we only notice afterwards that it has affected our results, then it
becomes known as a confounding variable. Populations and samplingOnce we have our aim and hypothesis, we have to decide who we want to do our research on. Research will often only be relevant to certain groups of people (all females, or all teenagers, or people suffering from depression etc). We call the group of people we want to apply our research to the target population.
Sampling methods and their evaluations...
Types of experiment in Psychology
Think like a Psychologist - evaluating types of experiment
Want another example of a place where you can save yourself work by just understanding that the strengths and weaknesses of different ideas will be related...? Look at the evaluations of the experimental designs section below, or of the sampling methods above! The same patterns occur... Experimental designsAs well as the type of experiment that you conduct, there are a number of ways that experiments can be designed. What we mean by this is the way that the experiment puts people into groups. The three main examples of this are below:
Non-experimental methodsExperiments are not the only way that psychologists can investigate behaviour. There are many other non-experimental methods which are widely used in the subject, such as correlation studies, content analyses, observational studies, case studies, questionnaires and interviews. Bandura et al (1961), Piliavin et al (1969) and Rosenhan (1973) are all good examples of observational studies from the CIE course.
Applying your understanding to a real study - The Marshmallow Test
Want more practice...? Firefly is your placeLog into the JIS Firefly page and find the 'Research methods' section in the 'Psychology' pages ('Humanities' section) for lots more resources and practice opportunities. Why are experiments generally more valuable than other research methods?Experiments are generally high in internal validity because of the manipulation of the independent variable and control of extraneous variables. Studies are high in external validity to the extent that the result can be generalized to people and situations beyond those actually studied.
What is the most valuable type of research?Primary research, because it is unique to your organization and research questions, is often the most expensive type of data to collect. Secondary research. It can be used to round out and support the conclusions drawn from primary research.
What is the greatest benefit of the experimental method?What is the major advantage of the experimental method? It permits conclusions about cause-and-effect relationships between variables.
What is the unique feature of experimental research design?Experimental designs, also called randomized experiments, are characterized by two distinguishing features: (i) the conscious manipulation by the researcher of a treatment or, more generically, an independent variable of interest, and (ii) the random assignment of units to treatment and control groups (Fig. 4).
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