Advanced Research Methods for Applied Psychology

Design, Analysis and Reporting

Paula Brough

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138698901
• eBook ISBN: 9781315517957
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This is the first comprehensive guide to the range of research methods available to applied psychologists. Ideally suited to students and researchers alike, and covering both quantitative and qualitative techniques, the book takes readers on a journey from research design to final reporting.

The book is divided into four sections, with chapters written by leading international researchers working in a range of applied settings:

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• Getting Started

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• Data Collection

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• Data Analysis

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• Research Dissemination

With coverage of sampling and ethical issues, and chapters on everything from experimental and quasi-experimental designs to longitudinal data collection and focus groups, the book provides a concise overview not only of the options available for applied research, but also of how to make sense of the data produced. It includes chapters on organizational interventions and the use of digital technologies, and concludes with chapters on how to publish your research, whether it's a thesis, journal article or organisational report.

This is a must-have book for anyone conducting psychological research in an applied setting.

1  Introduction to Advanced Research Methods for Applied Psychologists

Paula Brough

Introduction

The necessity for this book primarily arose from the long-term recognition that many post-graduates do not seem to be suitably equipped to consider the multiple nuances involved in conducting high quality psychological research. In addition, their available pathways to suitably educate themselves about research designs, research methods, data cleaning, statistical analyses, academic writing, and so on were multiple and somewhat convoluted. What was needed was a ‘one-stop shop’ discussing current research dilemmas to inform and assist them in their research training. An informed collection of current research methods and analyses issues providing a broad overview of the most relevant research topics for thesis students and other researchers in this field was considered to be of the most value, with clear directions also provided to explore more detailed discussions about each topic.

The aim of this book, therefore, is to assist (novice) researchers to understand how topics such as research design, data collection techniques, missing data analysis, and research outputs, for example, are all inter-related and that each should be duly considered when starting a research project. The ‘siloing’ of such key research topics (e.g., ‘research design’, ‘statistical analysis’, ‘research publication’) is acknowledged to be necessary for a suitable depth of detail. However, this compartmentalisation also contains the risk that researchers, even at the post-graduate level, may overlook the broad context and may not fully consider all the essential factors required to produce high quality research. Importantly, this book is intended to provide a direct bridge between pertinent academic research in research methods and the conducting of a research thesis within the applied psychology field. This book therefore fills a widely acknowledged gap concerning the difficulties interpreting the enormous field of research method literature, including recent developments, by junior researchers.

The increasing volume of postgraduate researchers in psychology and related fields is indicative of several key drivers, namely: a growth in intrinsic interest to conduct psychological research; recognition of the value of a postgraduate qualification for career development; and arguably the strongest driver (within Australia at least), the increased requirement for psychologists to complete a postgraduate qualification containing a research thesis component for professional psychology registration purposes. Hence the motivations of postgraduates to undertake their research project are mixed, to say the least. At the same time, most university academics are experiencing significant work-intensification processes. Academic time spent in teaching, research, and supervision work tasks are subject to increased monitoring and being reduced into specific allocations of work hours (e.g., a formal allocation of 18 hours per year to supervise a psychology master’s student in their thesis research), while annual academic outputs in both the research and teaching components are subject to increasing (and often unrealistic) pressures. The resulting time available for the supervision of theses research students is therefore becoming increasingly compressed. Therefore, this book is intended to be of direct value to both (increasingly busy) academic supervisors and their theses students as a useful reference point for the most relevant issues concerned with the conducting of postgraduate thesis research.

This book provides pertinent reviews of 24 key and current topics relevant to researchers within applied psychology and related fields. This book discusses the entire research process and is divided into four sections for clarity:

1. 1 Section 1: Getting started. This first section focuses on the initial research planning and design stages and consists of four chapters discussing the design of impactful research (Chapter 2); research sampling techniques (Chapter 3); research ethics and legal issues (Chapter 4); and instrumentation (Chapter 5).
2. 2 Section 2: Data collection. This section provides a review of 10 of the most common methods of data collection. The chapters discuss the most relevant issues concerning systematic reviews and meta-analyses (Chapter 6); the use of archival data (Chapter 7); an overview of qualitative research methods (Chapter 8); interviews, focus groups and the Delphi technique (Chapter 9); experimental and quasi-experimental research designs (Chapter 10); surveys and web research (Chapter 11); assessing cognitive processes (Chapter 12); longitudinal data collection (Chapter 13); diary studies, event sampling, and smart phone ‘apps’ (Chapter 14); and the design of organisational interventions (Chapter 15).
3. 3 Section 3: The nitty gritty: data analysis. This collection of eight chapters discusses what to do with data once it is collected. These chapters focus on the different methods of treating missing data (Chapter 16); preparing data for analysis (Chapter 17); content analysis and thematic analysis (Chapter 18); conducting ‘real’ statistical analyses (Chapter 19); using mediation test and confidence intervals with bootstrapping (Chapter 20); the use of structural equation modelling (Chapter 21); multilevel modelling (Chapter 22); and finally data assessments via social network analysis (Chapter 23).
4. 4 Section 4: Research dissemination. The final section consists of two chapters which discuss the two main methods to write up and disseminate thesis research, namely, a discussion of how to publish research (Chapter 24), and finally, the key considerations in writing up research for theses and organisational reports (Chapter 25).

I am extremely grateful to the esteemed group of experts featured in this collection, who each provided thoughtful discussions about these 24 pertinent topics impacting applied psychological research and related fields. I am appreciative of my invitations answered from all over the world with enthusiasm from key leaders in their fields. This has provided the book with a strong international perspective, which was my goal, for none of these research issues are limited to any one specific geographical context. I also aimed to ensure representation of the chapter authors from all fractions of applied psychology (e.g., clinical, organisational, social, occupational health, developmental, forensic, and cognitive) and a variety of related fields (e.g., business, law, management, mathematics, and computer science).

I believe this book has achieved my aims of providing an initial ‘one-stop shop’ for those at the early stages of conducting applied psychological research. All researchers regardless of their level of experience are certainly encouraged to produce high quality research which offers a meaningful contribution to the advancement of applied psychological knowledge. I hope this book directly assists you to achieve this research quality within your own project, and also conveys to you the excitement and enthusiasm for research and its multiple processes, which I and all the chapter authors readily expressed.

With my very best wishes for your research adventures!

Professor Paula Brough

Section 1

Getting Started

This first section of this book focuses on the initial research planning and design stages. The four chapters here will furnish you with valuable information about what research is all about and will hopefully help you to answer your own basic question of why you are doing all of this. These chapters remind you about the value of designing your research so that it can actually have an impact (Chapter 2) and of how to decide upon your research sample and how to recruit (and retain) your research participants (Chapter 3). Chapter 4 provides essential information about how to conduct ethical research, and Chapter 5 discusses how to choose and/or design research measures for inclusion in your study.

2 Designing impactful research

Paula Brough and Amy Hawkes

Introduction: ensuring research has impact

The necessity of spending sufficient time designing a research project cannot be emphasised enough. In practice, research projects are often influenced by time, resources, or sampling constraints, and these are, of course, the key ‘research limitations’ commonly listed in both published research articles and research theses. It is unfortunate that producing research which has relatively little impact (other than for the researcher themselves) is quite easy to accomplish. We acknowledge that a student’s experience of research training gained via the production of a research thesis is a viable outcome in itself. However, we also recognise that student research projects can often produce minimal other impact (i.e., for an organisation and/or for scholarly knowledge), and this is often a consequence of an inadequate project design. Appropriately designing a research project to produce useful insights and actual advances in knowledge requires time and thoughtful consideration. Allowing for insufficient time to thoroughly design a project is a common mistake made at all levels of research. In this chapter we discuss five of the basic features of applied psychological research which are essential to consider in the appropriate design of research and which maximise the opportunities of research achieving an actual external impact.

The applied scientific method

The training in how to conduct impactful research is a continuous developmental process that is improved with direct experience and with the value of hindsight. However, good research is also directly informed by the existing scholarly evidence and the critical consideration of key research principles, namely those of the scientific method. As researchers we are taught the basic principles of conducting good science, which in sum consists of the planned inclusion of ‘reliable and valid measures, sufficient and generalisable samples, theoretical sophistication, and research design that promotes causal generalisations’ (Sinclair, Wang, & Tetrick, 2013, p. 397). Additionally, as applied researchers, appropriate considerations must also be given to the implications of the research for society, organisations, and/or other end users. Pertinent discussions of the evolution of the scientific method for applied psychology research are plentiful and are recommended for further reading (e.g., Gurung et al., 2016; Hubbard, 2016). These discussions also include notable critiques of pertinent research issues, such as the recognition of common weaknesses (e.g., bias, replicability), avoiding arbitrary choices of analyses (e.g., Ioannidis et al., 2014), and an understanding of conceptual and terminological diversity, which is the use of multiple names within the literature for the same essential ideas (Sinclair et al., 2013). The components of the applied scientific method identified can be considered as a useful guide to planning and designing research projects. We discuss these five research principles in more detail here and strongly encourage researchers to confirm that their projects do adequately address each one of these principles.

The inclusion of reliable and valid measures

It is rare for a psychological construct to be assessed by just one specific measure. Instead, multiple measures commonly exist within the literature purporting to assess any single construct. For example, even a construct as specific as psychological burnout is typically assessed by one of three instruments: the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) (Maslach, Jackson, & Leiter, 1981), the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory (CBI) (Kristensen, Borritz, Villadsen, & Christensen, 2005), and the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory (OLBI) (Halbesleben & Demerouti, 2005). However, a very commonly assessed construct such as job satisfaction is measured by a multitude of different instruments, some of which assess job satisfaction within specific occupations such as human services (Spector, 1985) and nursing (Mueller & McCloskey, 1990; Stamps & Piedmonte, 1986). Other j...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of contributors
• 1 Introduction to Advanced Research Methods for Applied Psychologists
• Section 1 Getting Started
• Section 2 Data collection
• Section 3 The nitty gritty: data analysis
• Section 4 Research dissemination
• Index