RESEARCH IN PSYCHOLOGY

Research in Psychology

Research in Psychology

Basic research methods or primary research methods are observation, interview, experiment, clinical, techniques, tests of intelligence and ability. A research method may continue in use, however, long after the philosophical or methodological movement. (Creswell, 2009, 45)

Observation

Observational methods are the primary research tools of the ethologist. In the study of human behaviour, a comparable approach is that of ethnography, which combines several research techniques (observations, interviews, and archival and/ or physical trace measures) in a long-term investigation of a group or culture. This technique also involves immersion and even participation in the group being studied in a method commonly referred to as participant observation. (Agresti, 2009, 15)

The use of observational research methods of various kinds can be found in all of the social sciences—including, but not limited to, anthropology, sociology, psychology, communication, political science, and economics—and in fields that range from business to biology, and from education to entomology. These methods have been applied in innumerable settings, from church services to prisons to psychiatric wards to college classrooms, to name a few. Observational research approaches generally include many more observations or data points than typical experimental approaches, but they, too, are reductionistic in nature; that is, although relatively more behaviours are observed and assessed, not all behaviours that occur during data collection may be studied. This fact raises some special considerations. (Berg, 2003, 50)

How Will the Behaviours Being Studied Be Segmented?

Aristotle claimed that “natural” categories are those that “carve at the joint.” Some behaviour do seem to segment relatively easily via their observable features, such as speaking turns in conversation, or the beginning and end of an eye blink. For much other behaviour, beginnings and endings may not be so clear. Moreover, research has shown that observers asked to segment behaviours into the smallest units they found to be natural and meaningful formed different impressions than observers asked to segment behaviours into the largest units they found natural and meaningful, despite observing the same videotaped series of behaviours. The small-unit observers also were more confident of their impressions. Consumers of observational research findings should keep in mind that different strategies for segmenting behaviour may result in different kinds of observations and inferences. (Agresti, 2009, 15)

Interview Method

Interviewing is one of the most common primary social science research methods; it is used by a wide array of human geographers to gather information about people and particularly their views about their world and how they feel they and others fit within it. Interview “data” are typically obtained through verbal communication between the researcher and participant: face-to-face, over the telephone, and, occasionally yet increasingly, over the Internet as textual chat or Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP). The term interview is used to describe a wide range of techniques in both popular culture and academia. Though it is sometimes used to describe face-to-face, closed-ended, survey questionnaires that are filled out by the researcher, interview more commonly describes the far less structured qualitative technique. (Berg, 2003, 50)

All types of qualitative interviews are ...