Table of Contents

In this chapter, we look closely at these features, review the goals of psychology, and address several basic questions that students often have about it. Who conducts scientific research in psychology? Why? Does scientific psychology tell us anything that common sense does not? Why should I bother to learn the scientific approach—especially if I want to be a clinical psychologist and not a researcher?

In this chapter, we give you a broad overview of the various stages of the research process. These include finding a topic of investigation, reviewing the literature, refining your research question and generating a hypothesis, designing and conducting a study, analyzing the data, coming to conclusions, and reporting the results.

In this chapter we explore the ethics of scientific research in psychology. We begin with a general framework for thinking about the ethics of scientific research in psychology. Then we look at some specific ethical codes for biomedical and behavioral researchers —focusing on the Ethics Code of the American Psychological Association. Finally, we consider some practical tips for conducting ethical research in psychology.

To students who are just getting started in psychological research, the challenge of measuring such variables might seem insurmountable. Is it really possible to measure things as intangible as self-esteem, mood, or an intention to do something? The answer is a resounding yes, and in this chapter we look closely at the nature of the variables that psychologists study and how they can be measured. We also look at some practical issues in psychological measurement.

In this chapter we look more closely at non-experimental research. We begin with a general definition of, non-experimental research, along with a discussion of when and why non-experimental research is more appropriate than experimental research. We then look separately at three important types of non-experimental research: cross-sectional research, correlational research and observational research.

We begin with an overview of survey research, including its definition, some history, and a bit about who conducts it and why. We then look at survey responding as a psychological process and the implications of this for constructing good survey questionnaires. Finally, we consider some issues related to actually conducting survey research, including sampling the participants and collecting the data.

In this chapter, we focus on descriptive statistics—a set of techniques for summarizing and displaying the data from your sample. We look first at some of the most common techniques for describing single variables, followed by some of the most common techniques for describing statistical relationships between variables. We then look at how to present descriptive statistics in writing and also in the form of tables and graphs.

Experiments are used to determine not only whether there is a meaningful relationship between two variables but also whether the relationship is a causal one that is supported by statistical analysis. For this reason, experiments are one of the most common and useful tools in the psychological researcher’s toolbox. In this chapter, we look at experiments in detail.

Quasi-experiments are most likely to be conducted in field settings in which random assignment is difficult or impossible. They are often conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of a treatment—perhaps a type of psychotherapy or an educational intervention. There are many different kinds of quasi-experiments, but we will discuss just a few of the most common ones in this chapter.

This chapter focuses on called inferential statistics and, in particular, on null hypothesis testing, the most common approach to inferential statistics in psychological research. We begin with a conceptual overview of null hypothesis testing, including its purpose and basic logic. Then we look at several null hypothesis testing techniques for drawing conclusions about differences between means and about correlations between quantitative variables.

The research designs we have considered so far have been simple—focusing on a question about one variable or about a relationship between two variables. In this chapter, we look closely at how and why researchers use factorial designs, which are experiments that include more than one independent variable.

Most of this text addresses called group research, which typically involves studying a large number of participants and combining their data to draw general conclusions about human behavior. In this chapter, we consider this alternative approach. We begin with an overview of single-subject research, including some assumptions on which it is based, who conducts it, and why they do. We then look at some basic single-subject research designs and how the data from those designs are analyzed.

In this chapter, we look at how to present your research effectively. We begin with a discussion of American Psychological Association style—the primary approach to writing taken by researchers in psychology and related fields. Then we consider how to write an APA-style empirical research report. Finally, we look at some of the many other ways in which researchers present their work, including review and theoretical articles, theses and other student papers, and talks and posters at meetings.