How to:
Conduct a Study
For psychologists to be able to study human behavior, they need to go about the basic steps in conducting a scientific study. There are 5 steps in the Scientific Method: making an observation, asking a question, testing your hypothesis and collecting data, examine the results and draw conclusions, and then reporting the results. Below I will explain these steps more in depth.
The 5 Steps to the Scientific Method
Step 1: Make an observation
Before a researcher can begin to study something, they need to be able to choose a topic to study. After the researcher has chosen a topic, they need to review materials that have already been made on the subject they are studying. Doing this will give valuable information to the researcher on what has already been found and what needs to still be figured out.
Step 2: Ask a question
After the researcher has found and gathered information the topic they chose, they then need to ask a question. This question will be their hypothesis, which is an educated guess about what happens between two or more variables. Something to remember in making a hypothesis, is to think about what tests you could do to investigate the hypothesis.
Step 3: Test your hypothesis and Collect data
After the researcher has made a hypothesis, it is time to get the dice rolling and start collecting data. The methods that are used to test a hypothesis are determined on what is being studied. There are 2 main forms of research that someone may use in their study: descriptive and experimental. Descriptive research is used mostly when it would be difficult or impossible to manipulate the variables in the hypothesis. Experimental research is used mostly to find cause-and-effect relationships between two or more variables.
Step 4: Examine the results and Draw conclusions
After the fourth step has been finished, it is time for the researcher to examine the information and draw conclusions on what had been found. The researcher can use statistics to summarize data , and analyze the results to be be able to come up with a good conclusion. After they have confirmed the results, then they need to determine what those results mean. Whether or not the hypothesis was supported, or if it was failed to support the hypothesis.
Step 5: Report the results
The last step in the scientific method is to report and share your results. This is often done by writing a description of the study and making an article about it all. The steps and procedures need to be explained thoroughly in the article, so that other researchers can replicate their results.
