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This article is concerned with the nature of scientific method and its importance for psychology. It begins by considering the nature of scientific methodology as an essential source for a proper understanding scientific method.
- The Scientific Method
- Laws and Theories as Organizing Principles
- The Research Hypothesis
- Conducting Ethical Research
- Ensuring That Research Is Ethical
- Research with Animals
- Image Attributions
- References
- Long Descriptions
All scientists (whether they are physicists, chemists, biologists, sociologists, or psychologists) are engaged in the basic processes of collecting data and drawing conclusions about those data. The methods used by scientists have developed over many years and provide a common framework for developing, organizing, and sharing information. The scien...
One goal of research is to organize information into meaningful statements that can be applied in many situations. Principles that are so general as to apply to all situations in a given domain of inquiry are known as laws. There are well-known laws in the physical sciences, such as the law of gravity and the laws of thermodynamics, and there are s...
Theories are usually framed too broadly to be tested in a single experiment. Therefore, scientists use a more precise statement of the presumed relationship between specific parts of a theory — a research hypothesis — as the basis for their research. A research hypothesis is a specific and falsifiable prediction about the relationship between or am...
One of the questions that all scientists must address concerns the ethics of their research. Physicists are concerned about the potentially harmful outcomes of their experiments with nuclear materials. Biologists worry about the potential outcomes of creating genetically engineered human babies. Medical researchers agonize over the ethics of withho...
Making decisions about the ethics of research involves weighing the costs and benefits of conducting versus not conducting a given research project. The costs involve potential harm to the research participants and to the field, whereas the benefits include the potential for advancing knowledge about human behaviour and offering various advantages,...
Because animals make up an important part of the natural world, and because some research cannot be conducted using humans, animals are also participants in psychological research (Figure 3.3). Most psychological research using animals is now conducted with rats, mice, and birds, and the use of other animals in research is declining (Thomas & Black...
Figure 3.3: “Wistar rat” by Janet Stephens (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wistar_rat.jpg) is in the public domain.
Baumrind, D. (1985). Research using intentional deception: Ethical issues revisited. American Psychologist, 40, 165–174. Canadian Psychological Association. (2000). Canadian code of ethics for psychologists (third edition) [PDF]. Retrieved July 2014 from http://www.cpa.ca/cpasite/userfiles/Documents/Practice_Page/Ethics_Code_Psych.pdf Kohlberg, L. ...
Figure 3.2 long description:Sample research consent form. My name is [insert your name], and this research project is part of the requirement for a [insert your degree program] at [blank] University. My credentials with [blank] university can be established by telephoning [insert name and number of supervisor]. This document constitutes an agreemen...
- Charles Stangor, Jennifer Walinga
- 2010
Psychologists use the scientific method to generate, accumulate, and report scientific knowledge. The goal of basic research is to extend our knowledge, while the goal of applied research is to find solutions to practical problems.
- Sally Walters
- 2020
Psychologists use the scientific method to generate, accumulate, and report scientific knowledge. Basic research, which answers questions about behavior, and applied research, which finds solutions to everyday problems, inform each other and work together to advance science.
The scientific method is a process for gathering data and processing information. It provides well-defined steps to standardize how scientific knowledge is gathered through a logical, rational problem-solving method. Scientific knowledge is advanced through a process known as the scientific method.
Describe the principles of the scientific method and explain its importance in conducting and interpreting research. Differentiate laws from theories and explain how research hypotheses are developed and tested. Identify the role of the research hypothesis in psychological research.
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Oct 5, 2016 · To put it simply, a science is mainly a set of investigations of so-called scientific laws that characterize causal relationships within a field of study. When the relationships address the underlying problems in physics, society, or psychology, we have different sciences that sometimes entail different methodologies.
