Research Methods The words that are highlighted are important Scientific Game scientific inquiry strives for an understanding of reality that is true and the way that you go about formulating this understanding is what makes your endeavor scientific or not lived or who live today base their knowledge on these three sources what seems to have been true for me in the past Three Non Scientific ways to answer your question most people who have ever Experience Problems with Experience 1 Experience is Confounded too many things happening at once it s hard to isolate the true cause 2 Experience does NOT allow systematic comparison we can t test alternatives no access to parallel universe Intuition Problems with Intuition what feels like the true answer 1 We are prone to mistakes and biases in intuition Ex Patternicity we are motivated to find meaningful patterns in meaningful AND meaningless noise Ex rustle in the trees Ex The Availability Heuristic we tend to think that more memorable phenomena are more likely or true Ex plane crashes vs car crashes 2 Once our beliefs are formed they tend to be reinforced through confirmation biases People seek out info that confirms their original position then they interpret that info in a believe consistent way People are more critical of evidence that disconfirms their beliefs what does my culture believe to be true or what do Tradition and Authority trusted and knowledgeable people claim to be true Problems with Authority Authorities themselves may be just as prone to biases Going against the group has social consequences Sometime we are unaware at how culturally situated our facts are scientific claims must be subject to empirical tests that an observation or measurement that contributes to either verifying or falsifying a claim about what s true It is objective or independent of the observer and the evidence will be the same no matter who observes it any situation or procedure that creates empirical evidence which allows a claim on truth to be verified or falsified They must be replicable and verifiable Empirical Testing The Golden Rule of Science produce empirical evidence Empirical Evidence The Golden Assumption of Science The object of study exists in nature it is knowable it s possible to fully describe and explain even highly complex things like brains or time The object of study is lawful if we could perfectly control all of the input variables we could perfectly predict and control the outcome The Cycle of Scientific Progress observations lead to theories which leads researchers to pose particular research questions which lead to an appropriate research design In the context of the design researchers formulate hypotheses Researches then collect and analyze data which feedback into the cycle If Then Reasoning Theories are developed to help us answer the why question why did the data turn out as it did Theory Data Cycle If then reasoning enables us to test and refine theories If theory X is true then we should expect Y to happen No one experiment or study ever proves a theory our evidence in a theory depends on the body of supportive evidence Basic Applied Cycle Theory Testing Social Learning Theory we conditioned by social norms to behave in certain if then reasoning also enables us to take basic findings it is important to test a variety of theories and explanations and apply them to more realistic scenarios ways pregnancy and child rearing will be biologically motivated to be choosier and more cautious one or the other the sex that bares the greater cost risk of it is important to have multiple of these because it is never Parental Investment Theory Levels of Analysis It s not just Nature or Nurture it s both the extent to which we can apply these findings to other people Western Educated Industrialized Rich Democratic an explanatory variable that is not directly observable or turning abstract constructs into specific measurable instances that are Generalizability W E I R D Psychological Construct tangible both reliable and valid Ways to Operationalize Operationalize Self Report Pros verbal responses to interview or questionnaire items easy and low cost large anonymous samples can be quickly studied and may be the most appropriate format open to fabrication and social desirability bias memory distortions lazy or inattentive responding and may not be useful for non conscious or non declarative constructs Cons Self Report Biases Social Desirability Bias actively deceptive way way to avoid this is to randomize the order of questions Order and Priming Effects giving socially acceptable responses in an earlier responses can bias later ones A Response Set establish a pattern of responding when similar responses to a few initial questions Observational Measures recording observable behaviors Pros more shielded from respondent bias can be recorded with less interference less obvious and sometimes most appropriate operationalization what they want to see interpretation of issues and there is a possible issue of ethics can be more complicated to collect maybe the experimenters see Cons recording biological data believed to be associated Physiological Measures with a construct Pros Valid Cons Reliable hard to consciously control or fake can be very precise and perceived as more credible can be more expensive and time consuming to collect may require technical expertise w machinery procedures may be most sensitive to uncontrollable sources of error and there are issues of ethics the operationalized measure is actually capturing what it claims to be measuring the entire set of people of Interest a subset of the population of interest the measure produces consistent scores when constructs are stable and it as best and completely as possible captures changes when constructs change Population Sample Representative Sample measurement being made chance of being represented in the sample assessed and the final sample reflects the proportions of subgroups represented in the population Simple Random Sampling Stratified Random Sampling ensures that every individual in the population has an equal every person has a specified probability of being included a sample that is like the population with respect to the subpopulations are identified and proportions are Probability Sampling Non probability Sampling Wording Surveys the Do s Convenience Sampling using whatever sample is accessible the meaning of all questions must be clear and unambiguous to all Clarity
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