{"id":1852,"date":"2016-10-13T11:34:56","date_gmt":"2016-10-13T11:34:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/waymaker-psychology\/?post_type=chapter&p=1852"},"modified":"2024-05-17T02:15:03","modified_gmt":"2024-05-17T02:15:03","slug":"outcome-approaches-to-research","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/waymaker-psychology\/chapter\/outcome-approaches-to-research\/","title":{"raw":"Introduction to Approaches to Research","rendered":"Introduction to Approaches to Research"},"content":{"raw":"

What you'll learn to do: describe the strengths and weaknesses of descriptive, experimental, and correlational research<\/h2>\r\n\"Three<\/a>\r\n\r\nIf you think about the vast array of fields and topics covered in psychology, you understand\u00a0that in order to do psychological research, there must be a diverse set of ways to gather data and perform experiments. For example, a biological psychologist might work predominately in a lab setting or alongside a neurologist. A social scientist may set up situational experiments, a health psychologist may administer surveys, and a developmental psychologist may make observations in a classroom. In this section, you'll learn about the various types of research methods that psychologists employ to learn about human behavior.\r\n\r\n
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Psychologists use descriptive, experimental, and correlational methods to conduct research. Descriptive, or qualitative, methods include the case study, naturalistic observation, surveys, archival research, longitudinal research, and cross-sectional research.<\/p>\r\nExperiments are conducted in order to determine cause-and-effect relationships.\u00a0In ideal experimental design, the only difference between the experimental and control groups is whether participants are exposed to the experimental manipulation. Each group goes through all phases of the experiment, but each group will experience a different level of the independent variable: the experimental group is exposed to the experimental manipulation, and the control group is not exposed to the experimental manipulation. The researcher then measures the changes that are produced in the dependent variable in each group. Once data is collected from both groups, it is analyzed statistically to determine if there are meaningful differences between the groups.\r\n\r\nWhen scientists passively observe and measure phenomena it is called correlational research. Here, psychologists do not intervene and change behavior, as they do in experiments. In correlational research, they can identify a relationship between two variables but usually cannot infer what causes what.\r\n

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Watch It: More on Research<\/h3>\r\nIf you enjoy learning through lectures and want an interesting and comprehensive summary of this section, then\u00a0click on the Youtube link to watch a lecture given by MIT Professor John Gabrieli<\/a>. Start at the 30:45 minute mark<\/strong>\u00a0and watch through the end to hear examples of actual psychological studies and how they were analyzed. Listen for references to independent and dependent variables, experimenter bias, and double-blind studies. In the lecture, you'll learn about breaking social norms, \"WEIRD\" research, why expectations matter, how a warm cup of coffee might make you nicer, why you should<\/em> change your answer on a multiple choice test, and why praise for intelligence won't make you any smarter.\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/youtu.be\/syXplPKQb_o?t=30m45s\r\n\r\nYou can view the transcript for \"Lec 2 | MIT 9.00SC Introduction to Psychology, Spring 2011\" here (opens in new window)<\/a>.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n
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Learning Objectives<\/h3>\r\n