Key Ideas
· Empirical investigations in psychology may be experimental, quantitative observational, or qualitative.
· All investigation designs and methods of assessing psychological responses have advantages and disadvantages.
· All research involving humans has ethical dimensions.
· Different types of representation are appropriate for different types of data.
Areas of Learning
· The range of investigation designs that can be used to answer a particular research question and their advantages and disadvantages; the three investigation designs used in psychology — experimental, quantitative observational, and qualitative; focus groups and the Delphi technique as examples of qualitative investigations; advantages and disadvantages of quantitative and qualitative investigations; the difference between experimental investigations and quantitative observational investigations in their design.
· The three methods of assessing psychological responses — objective quantitative measures
(e.g. physiological measures such as heart rate, behavioural counts, scores on standardised intelligence tests), subjective quantitative measures (e.g. responses on checklists and rating scales, scores on personality tests), and qualitative assessment of data; content analysis of responses in focus groups as an example of qualitative assessment; awareness of the limitations of drawing conclusions using small or unrepresentative samples; consideration of the validity and reliability of the methods.
· Descriptive statistics (i.e. the ways in which quantitative and qualitative data may be represented and described); the generalisation of research findings. Instruction in statistics should be limited to determining medians and means; generating graphical representations of data; interpreting medians, means, standard deviations, and graphical representations of data. However, a brief description of the function of inferential statistics and criteria for significance will enable students to read original research with some understanding.
· Ethical issues associated with investigations; the ethical safeguards that have been incorporated in particular investigations.
In addition to these points you must also understand:
This subject is designed around the four levels of explanation of behaviour used in psychology. Behaviour can be explained in terms of biological processes, basic psychological processes, the attributes of the person enacting the behaviour, and sociocultural processes. These four levels are explained as follows:
· The biological level of explanation focuses on the biological and chemical processes underlying behaviour. For example, a biological level of explanation for interpersonal aggression might focus on the role played by hormones or activity in specific brain areas.
· The basic processes level of explanation focuses on the psychological processes that are universal (or at least very widespread) across humans. For example, a basic processes level of explanation for interpersonal aggression might focus on the cognitions and emotions that commonly precede it.
· The person level of explanation focuses on individual differences in behaviour. For example, a person level explanation for interpersonal aggression might focus on different levels of aggression displayed by persons with different types of personalities.
· The sociocultural level of explanation focuses on the influence that other people exert on behaviour by studying behaviour in social and cultural contexts. For example, a sociocultural level of explanation for interpersonal aggression might focus on the role played by onlookers or on different levels or types of interpersonal aggression displayed in different cultures
Links to Topics
3 Research Designs
3 Methods for Assessing Psychological Responses
Analysing and Evaluating Research
Sample Size, Validity & Reliability