Research Methods – Literature, Questions & Hypothesis

Resources

The Breakdown

Here are the important elements and core concepts from the module material, drawing on the sources provided:

Important

Literature Review – A crucial step in writing research proposals, papers, theses, and dissertations. It helps determine if a research question has been answered, evaluates the interestingness of a question, provides ideas for conducting a study, and helps fit the study into existing research.
Using Journals as Literature Sources – Journals, particularly peer-reviewed ones, are considered the best sources for reporting literature. Scholarly books are also important resources. Dissertations and theses can also be good sources.
Psych Info Database – A key resource for conducting literature searches using keywords, particularly important for Assignment One criteria. Searches can be filtered by criteria such as peer-review, language (English), date range, and publication type (journal article).
Criteria for Literature Searches – Specific criteria like peer-reviewed journals, English language, specific date ranges, and the publication type (journal article) are important for conducting searches. Using Boolean operators like “AND” is necessary to search for papers containing multiple concepts simultaneously.
Components of Writing a Literature Review (for a paper) – When writing about a paper in a literature review, important components to include are the author name (in APA format), the objective or hypothesis of the paper, the measures used, information about the sample size and procedure, the statistical procedure used, and the key results and conclusion.
Comparison and Gap Identification in Literature – Providing details about previous studies’ measures, sample size, and methods allows for comparison, helps identify gaps in the research, and can inspire ways to improve upon previous studies. Comparing your own study’s results with previous studies to see if they are consistent and understanding potential reasons for differences (like measures or sample size) is also important.
Psychological Measurement – A very important aspect of research in psychology needed to quantify psychological processes like cognition, behaviour, and emotions. Abstract concepts (constructs) like depression cannot be directly measured but require valid and reliable tools or scales.
Psychological Constructs – Abstract concepts that cannot be directly observed, such as personality, depression, anxiety, or love. It is very important to have valid and reliable measures to evaluate these constructs.
Conceptual and Operational Definitions – Very important for defining variables, especially when writing a research proposal. A conceptual definition describes the construct based on theory or literature (e.g., what depression is). An operational definition explains how you will measure the construct, including the name of the measure, number of items, what it measures, how to respond, how it is scored, and its validity and reliability.
Reliability and Validity of Measures – Very important aspects to provide in an operational definition. Reliability refers to the consistency of a measure (across time, items, or raters). Validity refers to whether the measure accurately measures what it intends to measure.
Cronbach’s Alpha – A famous measure used to test internal consistency reliability. An alpha of .70 or above is generally considered an acceptable reliability coefficient. This threshold is very important to know.
Levels of Measurement – Very important to understand. These include nominal (labels, no order), ordinal (labels with rank order), interval (scores with equal intervals, no true zero), and ratio (scores with equal intervals and a true zero).
True/Absolute Zero – Very important to understand. A true zero exists when a score of zero indicates the complete absence of the quantity being measured (like age, weight, or money in physics). Psychological measures typically do not have a true zero.
Variable Types in Research Context – Very important to understand, especially for selecting statistical procedures. Key types include independent variables (IV), dependent variables (DV), confounding variables, mediators, and moderators.
Dependent Variable (DV) – Also called the outcome or output variable (Y). It is the variable that is impacted by the independent variable.
Confounding Variable – A third variable that can influence the dependent variable in addition to the independent variable.
Mediator – A variable that explains the relationship between two other variables. Mediation implies a cause-and-effect relationship under certain conditions. Understanding the assumptions required for mediation (significant relationships between IV and DV, IV and mediator, and mediator and DV) is very important for interpreting results.
Complete Mediation – Occurs when the relationship between the independent and dependent variable becomes non-significant or very close to zero after including the mediator in the model. This allows for discussion of causality.
Scientific Method – The general approach psychology takes to understanding human behavior. It involves systematically collecting and evaluating evidence to test ideas and answer questions, based on systematic empiricism, empirical questions, and public knowledge. It is a very important concept.
Goals of Science – There are three main goals in psychology: describe (summarizing phenomena, results, patterns, relationships), predict (forecasting future outcomes based on relationships), and explain (determining the causes of relationships). Understanding these goals is very important, particularly for assessment.

Core concepts

Research Process Cycle: Scientific research in psychology often follows a cyclical model, starting with a research question (often from the literature), leading to an empirical study, data analysis, drawing conclusions, and publishing the results, which then become part of the literature, generating new questions. Research questions can also arise from observations or practical problems, but researchers typically review the literature first.
Literature Review: Reviewing the research literature involves finding, reading, and summarizing published research relevant to a topic. It is important for refining research questions, identifying methods, placing research in context, and preparing research reports.
Sources of Literature: The research literature primarily consists of articles in professional journals (especially peer-reviewed), scholarly books, and dissertations/theses. Conference abstracts are less recommended for citation as they are often not full papers and lack detailed procedure or data information.
Types of Scientific Papers: Common types include research papers (original work with new findings, data collection, empirical, peer-reviewed), review papers (summarising existing research), systematic reviews (summarising with specific inclusion criteria), meta-analyses (systematic review with statistical procedures), and theoretical articles (presenting new theories).
Structure of a Research Paper (APA Style): A standard empirical research report includes a title page, abstract, introduction (presenting the question, literature review, rationale), method (participants, design, procedure, materials), results, discussion (summary, implications, limitations, future research), and references.
Databases: Collections of academic and research works used for searching literature, such as PsycINFO, which contains records with publication information, abstracts, keywords, and index terms. Other search techniques include checking reference lists, using citing articles, Google Scholar, and consulting experts.
Identifying Variables: Variables are features, characteristics, or quantities that can be measured or observed and take on different values. Main variables can often be found in the paper’s title.
Measures: Tools used to evaluate or quantify variables. In psychology, common measures for psychological constructs are questionnaires (self-report scales), interviews, behavioural observations, and physiological measures. Converging operations involve using multiple types of measures.
Levels of Measurement: Categorisation of how variables are measured, determining the types of statistical analyses that can be performed. They are nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio scales. Psychological scores are typically interval or lower. Scoring is generally a quantitative, interval variable unless converted to categories.
Reliability: The consistency of a measure. Types include test-retest reliability (consistency over time), internal consistency (consistency among items in a scale), and interrater reliability (consistency between different observers or raters).
Validity: The extent to which a measure accurately assesses the intended construct. Types include face validity (whether it appears to measure the construct), content validity (whether it covers the full range of the construct), and criterion validity (association with other measures). Criterion validity includes concurrent validity (association with existing measures), predictive validity (ability to predict future outcomes), convergent validity (high correlation with measures of related constructs), and discriminant validity (low correlation with measures of unrelated constructs).
Variable Types in Research: In experiments, the independent variable (IV) is manipulated, and its effect is measured on the dependent variable (DV). A confounding variable is an extraneous variable that could provide an alternative explanation for observed effects. A mediator variable helps explain how or why an effect occurs. A moderator variable influences the strength or direction of a relationship between two variables.
Goals of Science: In psychology, the goals are to describe phenomena and relationships, predict future outcomes based on relationships, and explain relationships by identifying their causes. Non-experimental or correlational studies primarily satisfy the goal of description, while experimental studies are best suited for explanation (causality) due to manipulation and control.