1.2 Understanding the Research Process

1. 1.2 Understanding the Research Process pages 17 – 24

2. Aims, procedure, findings • Aim: purpose of the study • Target population: the group the researcher is investigating • Procedure: step by step process • Findings: how the researcher interpreted the data • How do you know if the findings are credible? • Has then study been repeated& confirmed by other researchers? • Is the study limited to one targeted/cultural group?

3. The Pygmalion Effect • State the Aim, Procedure, and Findings of the study? • Do you think the teachers were informed about the aim of the study? Comment on this.

4. Participants – who should be in your study? • Participants- people who take part in the study • Sample: the nature of the group. • Representative sample: a sample that represents a given population • e.g. women who have given birth to twins • Teenagers who take drugs • The size of the sample influences outcome

5. Types of sampling • Opportunity sampling • Convenience sampling – whoever happens to be there. • How representative of the population is this? • Is there cultural/gender imbalance? • What is the nature of the research? • Self-selected sampling • Volunteers – highly motivated, easy to obtain, BUT do they represent the general population?

6. Types of sampling cont., • Snowball-sampling • participants recruit friends/associates • Often used in social psychology • Participant Variability: the extent to which the participants share common traits. • Random sampling: one in which every member of the target population has an equal chance of being selected. • e.g. draw 25 – 30 names from a hat , use random numbers assigned by a computer. • Aim is to omit selection bias • Stratified sampling is a modification of random sampling which allows for subcategories , so all populations are represented.

7. Be a Researcher • You want to make a study of people’s motivation to engage in exercise. You decide to go to the local fitness center and conduct some interviews. • What type of sampling would this represent? • What population of people would be over represented/under represented? • How could you get a more representative sample?

8. Exercise 2: Propose suitable sampling techniques for the following. Explain your choices • You want to investigate student opinions about moving the school to a new site. • You want to investigate the relationship between caffeine use and Alzheimer’s disease in older people. • You want to investigate the possible effects of drug use on student performance at school • You want to know who the most popular sports person in your country is.

9. Ethics in research • Informed Consent • Deception • Debriefing • Withdrawal from the study • Confidentiality • Protection form physical or mental harm

10. Evaluating Findings: Does the Study have any practical Application? • Application: How is the study used? Can it be applied? • e.g. therapy, education, crime, workplace or even sports • Improving memory • Effects of lighting on mood and work production • Pygmalion effect

11. Validity and Reliability • Does the research do what it claims? • Ecological Validity asks, what happens in real life? • If the results only occur in a lab setting how accurate are they? • Cross Culture Validity – is the research relevant to other cultures? Or is it ethnocentric? • Native Americans vs. European Americans • Reliability – the results can be replicated.

12. What to Look For In A Study • What was the aim of the research? • Who made up the sample of participants? • Was the research valid and ethical? • Can the findings be applied to real life situations?

13. Critical Thinking Skills in establishing a study • Is the study based on a representative group of people? • Was the study conducted in a lab or a natural setting? • Were the participants asked to do things that are far from real life? • Are the finding of the study supported/questioned by other studies? • Do the findings have practical relevance? • Ethical considerations?