Designing Research

8 Key excerpts on "Designing Research"

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  eBook - PDF

  Introduction to Clinical Psychology

  • John Hunsley, Catherine M. Lee(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  3. Research Project Please provide title, anticipated starting and completion dates, and funding source. Please provide a summary (i.e., no CONTINUED . . . Research Designs 83 Research Designs As we describe in the following sections, numerous research designs are used in clinical psy- chology research. These designs vary in the degree of experimental manipulation (from natu- ralistic observation of behaviour to true experimental designs) and in the number of participants involved (from single participant designs to epidemiological designs using tens of thousands of participants). Although it is tempting to view certain designs as better or stronger than others, this is an oversimplification of research in a given domain. All designs have advantages and disadvantages. As we describe below, some designs are better than others in their capacity to control certain threats to research validity. We cannot determine the value of a design without knowing the state of knowledge in a research domain. For example, once a research area is well developed, correlational designs are unlikely to add anything new to the scientific literature. On the other hand, in a relatively new research area, even a relatively simple case study may make a meaningful contribution to the literature. No single study can answer all of the important questions in a research area. Often a good study generates far more questions than answers. Research must be seen as cumulative, with each study contributing to the knowledge base of an area. Clinical psychology, as broadly defined in Chapter 1, involves the application of scientific knowledge to the understanding, assessment, prevention, and treatment of psychological disorders and distress. Many different research areas are relevant to the practice of clinical psychology. It is obvious that clinical prac- tice should be informed by research on assessment, prevention, and intervention.

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  The Psychology Research Handbook

  A Guide for Graduate Students and Research Assistants

  • Frederick T. L. Leong, James T. Austin(Authors)
  • 2005(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications, Inc

    (Publisher)

  As in purchasing an automobile, there is no perfect study, and choice of a particular design involves trade-offs of known factors; moreover, unexpected events will occur that will demand modification of the design and perhaps aborting the study and designing a different study. Some studies will become classics; others will be forgotten, the Dodge Darts of psycho-logical research. This chapter will outline the general consid-erations involved in designing a psychological study. Knowing the rules of research and apply-ing them to one’s area of interest will not lead linearly to the optimal design; Designing Research is a creative process. Ingenuity often is needed to find a parsimonious way to discover truths about behavior. P URPOSE OF THE S TUDY The overarching guiding principle in designing a research study is to ensure that the study addresses the purpose of the research. In generic terms, the purpose of research is to discover knowledge, that is, to know something that was previously unknown. Research cannot be ade-quately designed unless the purpose of the research is carefully thought out and well stated. 93 94 • DESIGN, INSTRUMENT SELECTION OR DEVELOPMENT, AND SAMPLING In the received view of science, research is conducted to refine or reject extant theories or to develop new theories. The relation between theory and empirical research is complex and deeply embedded in philosophy of science. Nevertheless, a synopsis of this relation will be useful to understand how the design of a research study should be tied to theoretical propositions. One conception of a theory is that it is a general statement specifying the relations among psychological constructs. In order to conduct research that provides information about this theory, it is necessary to examine var-ious implications of the theory. That is, if theory adequately explains the true situation, then it can be predicted that some event or series of events should occur in a specified context.

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  Introduction to Clinical Psychology

  An Evidence-Based Approach

  • John Hunsley, Catherine M. Lee(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  Although it is tempting to view certain designs as better or stronger than others, this is an oversimplification of research in a given domain. All designs have advantages and disadvantages. As we describe below, some designs are better than others in their capacity to control certain threats to research validity. We cannot determine the value of a design without knowing the state of knowledge in a research domain. For example, once a research area is well-developed, correlational designs are unlikely to add anything new to the scientific literature. On the other hand, in a relatively new research area, even a relatively simple case study may make a meaningful contribution to the literature. No single study can answer all of the important questions in a research area. Often a good study generates far more questions than answers. Research must be seen as cumulative, with each study contributing to the knowledge base of an area. Clinical psychology, as broadly defined in Chapter 1, involves the application of scientific knowledge to the understanding, assessment, prevention, and treatment of psychological disorders and distress. Many different research areas are relevant to the practice of clinical psychology. It is obvious that clinical practice should be informed by research on assessment, prevention, and intervention. In addition, clinical practice can be enriched by knowledge of research on psychopathology, stress and coping, normal development, normal family processes, and many other areas. Some psychology students may find the rationale behind a number of research design features obscure or hard to comprehend. A useful way to think of these design features is as strategies that address potential shortcomings of psychological research. For example, some studies use control (or comparison) groups to examine similarities and differences between groups.

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  Research Methods in Psychology For Dummies

  • Martin Dempster, Donncha Hanna(Authors)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • For Dummies

    (Publisher)

  Doing Psychological Research Carrying out a research project can be a complex process. Consider these stages you have to go through (no skipping any of them!): ▶ ✓ First you have to have a comprehensive and viable plan that involves coming up with an idea and developing a research proposal. ▶ ✓ You have to decide if you want to measure and quantify the things you are interested in (quantitative research) or collect information on people’s experiences and opinions using their own words (qualitative research). 9 Chapter 1: Why Do Research in Psychology? ▶ ✓ You then have to choose a research design that is most appropriate for your proposed project. ▶ ✓ Finally, you have to disseminate your research findings through a written report, a research poster or an oral/verbal presentation. The stages of a research project are not always separate and distinct. You may have to tackle the question of quantitative vs. qualitative research at the same time you’re weighing different research designs. As you read through the book, you see that there may be overlap between stages. The following sections outline each of these stages and point you to the relevant chapters of the book to help you complete a successful research project. Planning research When we task students with conducting and writing up a research study, they’re often keen to begin and see the planning stage as a frustrating delay. However, it’s impossible to carry out a good research study without good planning – and this takes time. First, you need to identify your idea. To do this, you review the literature in the area you’re interested in. A good literature review demonstrates to your supervisor that you’re aware of existing published research in the area and that you’re familiar with its strengths and weaknesses. It ensures that your proposed study hasn’t been done before.

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  Research in Psychology

  Methods and Design

  • Kerri A. Goodwin, C. James Goodwin(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  Research can be classified in terms of its goals, setting, and type of data collected. We will make the distinctions between the following varieties of research: (a) basic or applied research, (b) laboratory or field research, and (c) quantitative or qualitative research. The Goals: Basic versus Applied Research Some research in psychology emphasizes describing, predicting, and explaining the fundamental principles of behavior and mental processes and such research goals define basic research. Traditionally, those involved in basic research in psychology have studied such topics as percep- tion, learning, cognition, and basic neurological and physiological processes as they relate to psychological phenomena. In contrast, applied research is so named because it has direct and immediate relevance to the solution of real‐world problems. To illustrate the distinction, consider some research in the area of attention (a topic with a long history—recall the 1913 Dallenbach study in Box 1.1 in Chapter 1). A basic research study might investigate the ability of people to simultaneously complete two different information‐processing tasks in a laboratory. The researcher might examine the effects of the similarity of the tasks, their difficulty, and so on. One well‐established method involves “shadowing” in a “dichotic listening” task, a technique pio- neered by Cherry (1953) and Broadbent (1958) in England. A research participant in this type of experiment wears earphones, with a different message coming into each ear simultaneously. The task is to focus attention on one message and shadow it—that is, while the message in one ear (the “attended” ear) is being heard, the subject tries to repeat out loud the message verbatim, as it is being heard. Of interest is what happens to the message coming into the other (i.e., the “unat- tended”) ear.

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  Experimental Design and Statistics for Psychology

  A First Course

  • Fabio Sani, John Todman(Authors)
  • 2008(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-Blackwell

    (Publisher)

  SCIENTIFIC PSYCHOLOGY AND THE RESEARCH PROCESS 7 SUMMARY OF CHAPTER • Ordinary people and professional psychologists are both interested in mental and behavioural issues. However, while ordinary people gather their knowledge by using a rather casual approach, psychologists use the scientific method. • The scientific method implies following a two-step research process. First, the researcher must formulate hypotheses – that is, formal statements pre-dicting that a specific change in one thing will produce a specific change in another – concerning the issue that is of interest. Second, the researcher must test the hypotheses, that is, he or she must design a study aimed at producing empirical evidence that the hypotheses are correct. • The experiment is the method that is used to establish a causal link between events. CHAPTER TWO The Nature of Psychology Experiments (I): Variables and Conditions In Chapter 1, we said that in order to investigate a psychological issue scientifically, you should comply with a two-step research process. First, you must formulate hypotheses. The kind of hypothesis that we will consider in this chapter is a formal statement predicting that a specific change in one thing will produce a specific change in another. We offered the following example of this type of hypothesis: ‘The more positive the mood of people, the better their intellectual performance.’ The second step consists of testing the hypothesis (i.e., providing evidence that the hypothesis is correct). Finally, we stated that the most commonly used technique for testing these types of hypothesis is the experiment. To design and conduct a sound experiment is a rather complex task, which implies acting in accordance with a set of very specific rules. In this chapter we will discuss the most important rules. However, we want to base this discussion on a concrete example.

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  Psychology, 6th Australian and New Zealand Edition

  • Lorelle J. Burton, Drew Westen, Robin M. Kowalski(Authors)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  Taking a qualitative research approach enables researchers to study phenom- ena in their natural settings and uncover a deeper meaning of phenomena. Pdf_Folio:226 226 Psychology SUMMARY 5.1 Describe the characteristics of quantitative research methods in psychology. • Psychologists might engage in quantitative research (e.g., exper- iments or surveys that provide data that can be quantified) or qual- itative research (e.g., interviews, observation and case studies to gain a richer understanding of the relevant phenomena), depending on the nature of their research question. • Empirical or scientific psychological research is characterised by a theoretical framework, standardised procedures, generalisability and objective measurement. • A theory is a systematic way of organising and explaining obser- vations that includes a set of propositions about the relationships among various phenomena. A hypothesis is a tentative belief or educated guess that purports to predict or explain the relationship between two or more variables; variables are phenomena that differ or change across circumstances or individuals. A variable that can be placed on a continuum is a continuous variable. A variable comprised of groupings or categories is a categorical variable. • A sample is a subgroup of a population that is likely to be representative of the population as a whole. Generalisability refers to the applicability of findings based on a sample to the entire population of interest. For a study’s findings to be generalisable, its methods must be sound, or valid. • A measure is a concrete way of assessing a variable. A good measure is both reliable and valid. Reliability refers to a measure’s ability to produce consistent results. The validity of a measure refers to its ability to assess the construct it is intended to measure. • The scientific approach uses empirical methodologies such as observation and experimentation to gain knowledge.

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  Psychology

  • Douglas Bernstein, , , (Authors)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Cengage Learning EMEA

    (Publisher)

  The _ method is most likely to use a double-blind design. 2. Research on a new treatment method is most likely to begin with _ . 3. Studying language by listening to people in public places is an example of _ research. To sum up, experiments are vital tools for examining cause-and-effect relationships between variables, but like the other methods we have described (see “In Review: Methods of Psychological Research”), they are vulnerable to error. To maximize the value of exper-iments, psychologists try to eliminate as many confounds as possible. Then they replicate their work to ensure consistent results and temper their interpretation of those results to take into account the limitations or problems that remain. Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 40 Research in Psychology Selecting Human Participants for Research Visitors from another planet would be wildly mistaken if they tried to describe a typ-ical earthling after meeting only Lady Gaga, Charlie Sheen, and a trained seal. Psy-chologists, too, can be led astray if the participants they encounter in their research are not typical of the people or animals about which they want to draw conclusions. Accordingly, a vital step in scientific research is selecting participants, a process called sampling .

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