Methods of enquiry in

Psychology
SESSION -3 AND 4
outline

 Goals of psychological enquiry

 Nature of psychological data
 Methods of psychology
observational method
Experimental method
Correlational research
survey research
psychological testing
Case study
Goals of psychological enquiry

 Description
 Prediction
 Explanation
 Control of human behaviour
Description

 In a psychological study we attempt to describe a behavior or a phenomenon as accurately

as possible
 This helps in distinguishing behavior from other behaviors

 Example: the researcher might be interested in observing study habits of the students.
Study habits may consist of diverse range of behaviours such as attending classes
regularly ,submitting assignments on time ,planning a study schedule etc.
within a particular category there may be further minute descriptions
Prediction

 The second goal of scientific enquiry is prediction of behavior . If you are able to
understand and describe the behavior accurately ,you come to know the relationship of a
particular behavior with other types of behavior, events or phenomena.

 You can then forecast that under certain conditions this particular behavior may occur
within a certain margin of error
 Example: researcher wants to establish a positive relationship between the amount of
study time and achievement in different subjects; later you come to know that a particular
child devotes more time for study
Explanation

 The third goal of psychological enquiry is to know the causal factors or determinants of
behavior
 Psychologists are primarily interested in knowing the factors that make behavior occur ;
also what are the conditions under which a particular behaviour occur and does not occur.

 For example, what makes some students to be more attentive in the class?
control

 If you are able to explain why a particular behavior occurs ,you can control that behavior
by making changes in its antecedent conditions
 Control refers to three things : making a particular behaviour to happen .reducing it or
enhancing it
Steps in conducting scientific research

 The scientific method is the set of assumptions, rules, and procedures scientists use to
conduct research
Steps in conducting scientific research

 In addition to requiring that science be empirical, the scientific method demands that the
procedures used be objective, or free from the personal bias or emotions of the scientist.
 The scientific method proscribes how scientists collect and analyze data, how they draw
conclusions from data, and how they share data with others. These rules increase
objectivity by placing data under the scrutiny of other scientists and even the public at
large.
 Because data are reported objectively, other scientists know exactly how the scientist
collected and analyzed the data. This means that they do not have to rely only on the
scientist’s own interpretation of the data; they may draw their own, potentially different,
conclusions
 Most new research is designed to replicate — that is, to repeat, add to, or modify —
previous research findings. The scientific method therefore results in an accumulation of
scientific knowledge through the reporting of research and the addition to and
modification of these reported findings by other scientists.
Laws and Theories as Organizing Principles

 One goal of research is to organize information into meaningful statements that can be
applied in many situations. Principles that are so general as to apply to all situations in a
given domain of inquiry are known as laws. There are well-known laws in the physical
sciences, such as the law of gravity and the laws of thermodynamics, and there are some
universally accepted laws in psychology, such as the law of effect and Weber’s law
 The next step down from laws in the hierarchy of organizing principles is theory. A theory
is an integrated set of principles that explains and predicts many, but not all, observed
relationships within a given domain of inquiry. One example of an important theory in
psychology is the stage theory of cognitive development proposed by the Swiss
psychologist Jean Piaget. The theory states that children pass through a series of cognitive
stages as they grow, each of which must be mastered in succession before movement to
the next cognitive stage can occur. This is an extremely useful theory in human
development because it can be applied to many different content areas and can be tested
in many different ways
 Good theories have four important characteristics. First, good theories are general,
meaning they summarize many different outcomes. Second, they are parsimonious,
meaning they provide the simplest possible account of those outcomes. The stage theory
of cognitive development meets both of these requirements. It can account for
developmental changes in behaviour across a wide variety of domains, and yet it does so
parsimoniously — by hypothesizing a simple set of cognitive stages. Third, good theories
provide ideas for future research. The stage theory of cognitive development has been
applied not only to learning about cognitive skills, but also to the study of children’s
moral (Kohlberg, 1966) and gender (Ruble & Martin, 1998) development.
 Finally, good theories are falsifiable (Popper, 1959), which means the variables of interest
can be adequately measured and the relationships between the variables that are predicted
by the theory can be shown through research to be incorrect. The stage theory of cognitive
development is falsifiable because the stages of cognitive reasoning can be measured and
because if research discovers, for instance, that children learn new tasks before they have
reached the cognitive stage hypothesized to be required for that task, then the theory will
be shown to be incorrect.
The Research Hypothesis

 Theories are usually framed too broadly to be tested in a single experiment. Therefore,
scientists use a more precise statement of the presumed relationship between specific
parts of a theory — a research hypothesis — as the basis for their research. A research
hypothesis is a specific and falsifiable prediction about the relationship between or among
two or more variables, where a variable is any attribute that can assume different values
among different people or across different times or places.
 The research hypothesis states the existence of a relationship between the variables of
interest and the specific direction of that relationship. For instance, the research
hypothesis “Using marijuana will reduce learning” predicts that there is a relationship
between one variable, “using marijuana,” and another variable called “learning.”
Similarly, in the research hypothesis “Participating in psychotherapy will reduce anxiety,”
the variables that are expected to be related are “participating in psychotherapy” and
“level of anxiety
Perform research

 Collecting data-the second step in scientific research is to collect data. Data collection
requires developing a research design or a blue print of the entire study .
 It requires taking decisions about the following four aspects :
 participants in the study
 The methods of data collection
 Tools used in research
 Procedure of data collection
Drawing conclusions

 The next step is to analyse data so collected through the use of statistical procedures to
understand what the data means

 This can be achieved through graphical representations such as preparation of pie

chart ,bar diagram ,cumulative statistical methods
Revising Research conclusions

 The researcher may have begun the study with a hypothesis that there exists a relationship
between viewing violence on television and aggression among children. s/he has to see
whether the conclusions support this hypothesis.

 If they do , the existing hypothesis /theory is confirmed .

Interpretive methods

 It emphasises understanding over explanation and prediction

 It takes the stand that , in view of complex and variable nature of human behaviour and
experience , its method of investigation is different from the method of investigation of
the physical world
 This method emphasizes the importance of human beings give meaning to events and
actions and interpret them as they occur in particular context.
Some important methods of psychology

 Observational method
 Experimental method
 Correlational research
 Survey research
 Psychological testing
Observational method

 Observation is a very powerful tool of psychological enquiry . It is an effective method of

describing behaviour
 Selection
 Recording
 Analysis of data
Types of observation

 Naturalistic observation vs controlled observation

When observation are done in a natural real life setting it is called naturalistic observation
 Non participant vs participant observation –this can be done in two ways . One way you
may decide to observe the person or even from a distance . Two, the observer may
become part of the group being observed might not be aware that s/he is being observed.
Experimental method

 Experiments are generally conducted to establish cause-effect relationship between two sets
of events or variables in a controlled setting. It is a carefully regulated procedure in which
changes are made in one factor and its effect is studied on another factor ,while keeping
other related factors constant.
 The concept of variable
 Independent variable- is that variable which is manipulated and altered or its strength varied
by the researcher in the experiment. It is the effect of this change the researcher wants to
observe or note in the study
 Dependent variable –dependent variable represents the phenomenon the researcher the
researcher desires to explain
 Independent and dependent variables are interdependent
Experimental and control groups

 Experimental groups is a group which members of the group are exposed to independent
variable manipulation.

 Control group is a comparison group that is treated in everyway like the experimental
group except that the manipulated variable is absent in it
Activity -1

 Identify the independent and dependent variables from the given hypothesis:

 Teacher’s classroom behaviour affects students performance

 Healthy parent child relationship facilitates emotional adjustment of children
 Increase in peer pressure increases the level of anxiety
 Enriching the environment of young children with special books and puzzles enhances
their performance
Correlational Research

 In psychological research we often wish to determine the relationship between variables

for prediction purposes . For example .you may be interested in knowing whether the “
the amount of study time is related to “studnts academic achievement “ question is
different from the one which experimental method seeks to answer in sense that here you
do not manipulate the amount of study time and examine its impact on achievement.
 Rather ,you simply find the relationship between the two variables to determine whether
they are associated covary lr not.
Survey method

 Surveys are conducted to find out if people would vote for a particular political party,or
favour a particular candidate.
 Survey research came into existence to study opinions ,attitudes and social facts
 Their main concern initially was to find out facts as the existing reality.
Methods of survey

 Personal interviews
 Questionnaire survey
 Telephonic survey
Psychological testing

 Assessment of individual differences remained one of the important concerns of

psychology from the very beginning
 Psychologists have constructed different types of tests and assessments for measuring
human characteristics such as intelligence,aptitude, personalityetc
Case study