Chapter 2 Notes - Dr. Megan Meyer PDF

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Dr. Megan Meyer...

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PSY 280- Research Psychology Chapter 2: Where to Start Notes The motivation to conduct scientific research derives from a natural curiosity about the world Research Questions, Hypotheses, and Predictions ● Research Questions: what researchers use to identify and describe a broad topic they are investigating ○ Should be pretty scientific ○ Stems from observations ● Hypothesis: a tentatitive idea or question that waits for evidence to support or refute it ○ More specific versions of research questions ○ Testable ● Prediction: a guess at the outcome of a hypothesis ○ “If….then….” form Who do we study: A note of Terminology ● Participants or subjects ● Respondents of informats (less common) Source of Ideas ● Five sources of ideas: common sense, observation of the world, theories, past research, and practical problems ● Common Sense ○ The things we believe to be true ○ Attraction, effects or punishment, and the role of visual images in learning and memory ● Observations of the World Around Us ○ Observations and experiences ○ Serendipity- interesting discoveries found out of luck ● Theories ○ Theory: a systematic body of ideas about a certain topic or phenomenon ○ Ideas about learning, memory, personality, etc ○ They organize and explain topics ○ Generate new knowledge ○ Ex: evolutionary theory ● Past Research ○ Used to refine and expand our knowledge ○ Types of research reports: literature reviews (summarize), theory articles (new framework) and empirical research articles (data) ● Practical Problems ○ Can have immediate applications ○ Ex: public policy Exploring Past Research ● Must be knowledgeable of past research before conducting any research project ● The Nature of Journals

○ Very competitive and most are rejected ○ Focus on one or two areas of human or animal behavior ● Online Scholarly Research Database: Psych INFO ○ APA has monthly publications of “psychological abstracts” ○ See page 29-30 for psych journal examples ○ Google Scholar is a good resource ● Conducting a Psych INFO Search ○ Specify search terms ○ Digital object identifier (DOI) can help find full texts Anatomy of a Research Article ● Abstract (about 150-250 words), intro, method, and results ● Introduction ○ Intro section: outlines the problem that has been investigated ○ Discusses how past research and theories relate ● Method ○ Method section: divided into subsections (# varies) ○ Overview of design, characteristics of participants, procedure used, detail of equipment or testing materials ● Results ○ Result section: the researcher presents the findings in 3 ways (narrative, statistical, and tables/graphs) ● Discussion ○ Discussion section: researcher reviews the research from various perspectives...