Research Methods

What is Involved in Research?

Research Why was it done?What was the research question?How did the psychologist carry out the

research?How were the results analysed?

Loftus and Palmer Freud (Little Hans/Anna O)

Asch’s Study Rosenhan Buss Any others you

remember?

Data, observatione.g. I like music when I study

Theory e.g. I learn better when music is playing

Results of investigation – support theory – or not?

Investigate – compare how much is learnt in silence or with music playing ?

The Research Cycle

Research may begin with an observation e.g. Kitty Genovese was stabbed to death, and nobody helped or even rang the police – why was that?

Work out the aims of the examples PPs were tested on their ability to avoid obstacles in a

computer driving simulation. Half of them were asked to respond verbally to a series of questions during the simulation. The other half completed the same task but without questions.

PPs were given a series of words to learn. Half of the participants were given the words arranged into categories (e.g. items of furniture, means of transport). The other half were given the same words but randomly arranged. They were later tested on recall of the words.

Researchers asked AS Level student PPs, to complete a questionnaire about how long they spent studying each week. After the exams, the researchers compared their responses with their exam marks.

HypothesisNull Hypothesis : A prediction that there is no

relationship between variable . (e.g. there is no relationship between drinking water and memory)

Directional (one tailed): a prediction that there is a relationship between variables (e.g. drinking water improves memory)

Non directional (Two tailed): that there will be a difference between variables however, this prediction does not say which condition will produce the highest score. (e.g. there drinking water does effect memory)

Last fact……If the researcher is more than 95% sure

that independent variable has had an effect, then the directional/non directional hypothesis can be accepted.

If not, then the null hypothesis must be accepted.

Ivy Deevy Independent variable

(IV): Comes first It is manipulated by the

researcher

Dependent variable (DV): It varies/changes

because of the independent variable

The result of changing IV

Example ......

Does revising with music effect scores on AS exam?

Does eating green smarties increase memory?

Lets see how good we are....

http://sixthsense.osfc.ac.uk/psychology/pages/research_methods/research_methods.asp