INTRODUCTION TO SCIENTIFIC PROCESSES

SPECIFICATION:

SCIENTIFIC PROCESSES

  • Aims: stating aims, the difference between aims and hypotheses.

  • Hypotheses: directional and non-directional.

  • Sampling: the difference between population and sample; sampling techniques including random, systematic, stratified, opportunity and volunteer; implications of sampling techniques, including bias and generalisation.

  • Pilot studies and the aims of piloting

    FOR THE THREE POINTS BELOW, PLEASE SEE RESEARCH METHODS

  • Experimental designs: repeated measures, independent groups, matched pairs.

  • Observational design: behavioural categories, event sampling, time sampling.

  • Questionnaire construction, including open and closed questions; design of interviews.

    FOR THE THREE POINTS BELOW, PLEASE SEE “CONTROL OF VARIA

  • Variables: manipulation and control of variables, including independent, dependent, extraneous, confounding; operationalisation of variables.

  • Control: random allocation and counterbalancing, randomisation and standardisation.

  • Demand characteristics and investigator effects.

  • Ethics, including the role of the British Psychological Society’s code of ethics; ethical issues in the design and conduct of psychological studies; dealing with ethical issues in research.

  • The role of peer review in the scientific process.

  • The implications of psychological research for the economy.

  • Reliability across all methods of investigation. Ways of assessing reliability: test-retest and inter-observer; improving reliability.

  • Types of validity across all methods of investigation: face validity, concurrent validity, ecological validity and temporal validity. Assessment of validity. Improving validity.

  • Features of science: objectivity and the empirical method; replicability and falsifiability; theory construction and hypothesis testing; paradigms and paradigm shifts.

  • Reporting psychological investigations. Sections of a scientific report: abstract, introduction, method, results, discussion and referencing.

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AIMS, HYPOTHESES AND HOW TO WRITE THEM