Research Methods in Psychology

Who? … YOU!

What? …Scientific Method and Communication

Where? … Here

When? … Now

WHY?????

1. Assist you in other psychology courses2. Provide you with skills necessary for graduate school (if that is your choice)3. Provide you with skills appreciated by employers (critical thinking, analysis, clear communication, etc).4. SCIENTIFIC EMPOWERMENT5. And the list goes on and on….6. But mostly

To avoid being a chump!!

“There are lies, damned lies and statistics”. Mark Twain

oops, I lied

Stretching the truth…. Selective calculations….

But who would ever LIE to us?????

Statistics are a start…. but not the end.

Examples of statistical abuse (aka “sadistics”)

……who, indeed.

What is “Truth”?How do we search for it?

How do we know anything… …REALLY?

Sources of Knowledge:

- authority - tenacity - experience - reason and logic

- SCIENCE

List one thing about human behavior that you have learned from each source.

What are the strengths and weaknesses of each source of knowledge?

The Scientific Enterprise

Definition of Science – it’s a VERB!!!!

Four canons (with one n) of science: (Canon = a generally accepted principle)

Objective measurement

Independent verifiability

Self correction

Control

Types of Research:

QualitativeDescriptiveCorrelationalExperimental

Pieces of the Pie

DV – dependentIV – independentEV - extraneousCV – confounding

OPERATIONAL DEFINITIONS

Beware of BAD SCIENCE

Small group project::

Search for examples of bad science on the internet. For your example, be able to answer the following questions:

1.What makes this science BAD?2.What is the source of this science?

INDEPENDENT VARIABLE

Manipulation

DEPENDENT VARIABLE

Measurement

If done properly, will establish a causal

relationship

EXTRANEOUS VARIABLES - UNCONTROLLED VARIATION - CONFOUNDING VARIABLES

GROUP PROJECT: 1. Analyze your example of “bad science” with specific reference to this flow chart. Where does your example go wrong? 2. Using the same topic, describe how you could turn your example of bad science into good science.