PSYCHOLOGY ASSIGNMENT

Psychology Research

Psychology Research

Introduction

Psychology is a science; therefore, it relies upon scientific research to study behaviors and mental processes. In comparison to personal observations and experiences, scientific research is systematic and usually requires collaboration among researchers. The scientific approach is characterized by four ideals: curiosity, skepticism, objectivity, and critical thinking. Embracing these attitudes or ideals increases the likelihood that psychological research will result in reliable and objective scientific findings.

The basic randomized experimental design is the randomized post-test- only control group design because of randomly assigned participants to the intervention and control groups, and data being collected only once during the Post-intervention phase. Random assignments produce intervention and control groups that do not differ with respect to characteristics related to the outcome variables of interest. This design can be expanded to more than two groups namely the randomized and non randomized control groups. The randomized pre-test-post-test control group design builds on the randomized post-test control group design by adding pre-intervention measures that allow for explicit evaluation of pre to-post changes, and the use of certain statistical analysis that can take advantage of available baseline data (e.g. analysis of covariance) (Shadish, 2002).

This traditional design is the most widely used an experimental design in drug trials and other clinical research. As with the randomized post-test-only control group design. This design typically controls for threats to internal validity because any existing threats are expected to affect both groups equally. For example, the testing effect may exist which should be present in both the control groups. Therefore, any changes in the intervention group beyond those in the control group would be attributable to the intervention. However, the design does not control for external validity including the testing of variables which can arise because the pretest may sensitize participants to the intervention, producing results that would not be seen in a non-pre-tested situation (Shadish, 2002).

Marczyk (2005) noted that this design commonly controls for threats to internal validity. If testing is likely to be a threat to internal validity or to external validity through the interaction of testing and x, this design should be considered because its lack the pre-test measures that eliminate the testing effect. However, the design does not allow for the explicit evaluation of pre-to-post changes in the dependent variables (although the control group post-test measure may serve as a proxy for the pre-test measures).

Discussion

Following are the points that are included in the research of psychological research based on the scientific method these involve:

Conceptualizing a problem. This step involves taking an issue that the researcher is curious or skeptical about and expressing it in terms of operational definitions and hypotheses.

Collecting data. Based on the conceptualization of the problem, the researcher selects a research method that will be appropriate to explore the issue or test the proposed hypothesis or hypotheses. An important aspect of collecting data is selecting an appropriate sample that is representative of the population of interest. One of the options researchers have is to use a random sample, to increase ...