Research Methodology

Introduction

Dr T Srinivas Rao
Explaining Behaviour
• The night of June 26, 2007, was supposed to be one of celebration for Bailey
Goodman and her four friends. After all, she and her friends were driving to
her parents’ lake cottage to celebrate their graduation from Fairport High
School near Rochester, New York. Their plans were to spend a few days
together at the cottage and then return home to attend some graduation
parties. The future looked bright for the fi ve young women, all of whom were
cheerleaders at their high school. Unfortunately, those bright futures were
not to be realized. On their way to the cottage, Bailey Goodman, who was
driving an SUV, crossed over the centerline of the road and crashed head-on
into an oncoming tractor trailer truck driven by 50-year-old David Laverty.
Moments after the catastrophic collision, Goodman’s SUV burst into fl ames,
trapping the girls in the burning wreckage. All fi ve were killed in the inferno
What is Science and What Do Scientists DO
• Simply put, science is a set of methods used to collect information
about phenomena in a particular area of interest and build a reliable
base of knowledge about them. This knowledge is acquired via
research, which involves a scientist identifying a phenomenon to
study, developing hypotheses, conducting a study to collect data,
analyzing the data, and disseminating the results. Science also
involves developing theories to help better describe, explain, and
organize scientific information that is collected. At the heart of any
science (psychology included) is information that is obtained through
observation and measurement
• So, for example, if I want to know if text messaging while driving is a
serious threat to safety, I must go out and make relevant
observations.
• Science also requires that any explanations for phenomena can be
modified and corrected if new information becomes available.
Nothing in science is taken as an absolute truth.
• All scientific observations, conclusions, and theories are always open
to modification and perhaps even abandonment as new evidence
arises.
What Do Scientists Do
• a scientist is someone who does science.
• A scientist is a person who adopts the methods of science in his or her quest for knowledge. However,
this simple defi nition does not capture what scientists do.
• For example, you have scientists who work for pharmaceutical companies trying to discover new
medications for the diseases that affl ict humans.
• You have scientists who brave the bitter cold of the Arctic to take ice samples that they can use to
track the course of global climate change.
• You have scientists who sit in observatories with their telescopes pointed to the heavens, searching
for and classifying celestial bodies.
• You have scientists who work at universities and do science to acquire knowledge in their chosen fi
elds (e.g., psychology, biology, or physics).
• In short, science is a diverse activity involving a diverse group of people doing a wide range of things.
Despite these differences, all scientists have a common goal: to acquire knowledge through the
application of scientifi c methods and techniques.
Science as a Way of Thinking
• It is important for you to understand that science is not just a means of acquiring
knowledge; it is also a way of thinking and of viewing the world.
• A scientist approaches a problem by carefully defi ning its parameters, seeking out
relevant information, and subjecting proposed solutions to rigorous testing.
• The scientifi c view of the world leads a person to be skeptical about what he or she reads
or hears in the popular media. Having a scientifi c outlook leads a person to question the
validity of provocative statements made in the media and to fi nd out what scientifi c
studies say about those statements.
• In short, an individual with a scientifi c outlook does not accept everything at face value.
The scientifi c method is not the only way to approach a problem. As we discuss later in
this chapter, some problems (philosophical, ethical, or religious) may not lend themselves
to exploration with the scientifi c method. In those cases, other methods of inquiry may
be more useful.
How Do Scientists do science
• In their quest for knowledge about a phenomenon, scientists can use a wide variety of
techniques, each suited to a particular purpose. Take the question about using a cell phone
while driving an automobile. You, as a scientist, could approach this issue in several ways.
• For example, you could examine public records on automobile accidents and record the
number of times a cell phone was in use at the time of the accident. You would then examine
your data to see if there is a relationship between talking on a cell phone and having an
automobile accident.
• If you found that there was a greater frequency of accidents when drivers were talking on a
cell phone, this would verify the role of cell phones in automobile accidents. Another way you
could approach this problem is to conduct a controlled experiment. You could have
participants perform a simulated driving task and have some drivers talk on a cell phone and
others not. You could record the number of driving errors made. If you found a greater
number of errors on the driving task when the drivers were talking on the cell phone, you
would have verifi ed the effect on driving ability of talking on a cell phone.
Basic and Applied Research
• Scientists work in a variety of areas to identify phenomena and develop valid
explanations for them. The goals established by scientists working within a given field of
research may vary according to the nature of the research problem being considered.
• For example, the goal of some scientists is to discover general laws that explain
particular classes of behaviors.
• In the course of developing those laws, psychologists study behavior in specifi c
situations and attempt to isolate the variables affecting behavior.
• Other scientists within the fi eld are more interested in tackling practical problems than
in finding general laws. For example, they might be interested in determining which of
several therapy techniques is best for treating severe phobias.
• An important distinction has been made between basic research and applied research
along the lines just presented.
Basic research
• Basic research is conducted to investigate issues relevant to the confi
rmation or disconfi rmation of theoretical or empirical positions.
• The major goal of basic research is to acquire general information about a
phenomenon, with little emphasis placed on applications to real-world
examples of the phenomenon (Yaremko, Harari, Harrison, & Lynn, 1982).
• For example, research on the memory process may be conducted to test
the efficacy of interference as a viable theory of forgetting.
• The researcher would be interested in discovering something about the
forgetting process while testing the validity of a theoretical position.
Applying the results to forgetting in a real-world situation would be of less
immediate interest.
Applied Research
• The focus of applied research is somewhat different from that of basic research.
Although you may still work from a theory when formulating your hypotheses,
your primary goal is to generate information that can be applied directly to a real-
world problem.
• A study by James Ogloff and Neil Vidmar (1994) on pretrial publicity provides a
nice example of applied research.
• It informs us about a very real problem facing the court system: To what extent
does pretrial publicity affect the decisions jurors make about a case?
• The results of studies such as Ogloff and Vidmar’s can help trial and appeals court
judges make decisions concerning limitations placed on jury exposure to pretrial
publicity. Further examples of applied research can be found in the areas of
clinical, environmental, and industrial psychology (among others).
Framing a Problem in Scientific Terms
• Kelly (1963) characterizes each person as a scientist who develops a
set of strategies for determining the causes of behavior observed.
• We humans are curious about our world and like to have
explanations for the things that happen to us and others.
• After reading about Bailey Goodman’s accident, you may have
thought about potential explanations for the accident. For example,
you might have questioned Goodman’s competence as a driver or
speculated about the role of alcohol or drugs in the accident.
• Usually, the explanations we come up with are based on little
information and mainly refl ect personal opinions and biases.
• The everyday strategies we use to explain what we observe
frequently lack the rigor to qualify as truly scientifi c approaches.
• In most cases, the explanations for everyday events are made on the
spot, with little attention given to ensuring their accuracy.
• We simply develop an explanation and, satisfi ed with its plausibility,
adopt it as true. We do not consider exploring whether our
explanation is correct or whether there might be other, better
explanations.
• If we do give more thought to our explanations, we often base our
thinking on hearsay, conjecture, anecdotal evidence, or unverifi ed
sources of information.
• These revised explanations, even though they reduce transient curiosity,
remain untested and are thus of questionable validity.
• In the Bailey Goodman case you might conclude that talking on a cell
phone while driving distracts the driver from important tasks required to
successfully navigate a car. Although this explanation seems plausible,
without careful testing it remains mere speculation. To make matters
worse, we have a tendency to look for information that will confi rm our
prior beliefs and
• assumptions and to ignore or downplay information that does not
conform to those beliefs and assumptions.
• So, if you believe that talking on cell phones causes automobile
accidents, you might seek out newspaper articles that report on such
accidents and fail to investigate the extent to which cell phone use
while driving does not lead to an accident.
• The human tendency to seek out information that confi rms what is
already believed is known as confi rmation bias. At the same time,
you may ignore information that confl icts with your beliefs.
• Unfounded but commonly accepted explanations for behavior can
have widespread consequences when the explanations become the
basis for social policy.

• To avoid the trap of easy, untested explanations for behavior, we need