Research and Method in Psychology

An introduction

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Introduction

This part of the course serves two functions.

  • To allow students to develop appropriate practical research skills.
  • To enable students to evaluate research encountered in other components of the course.

This unit serves as an introduction to methodology, with the primary focus on quantitative methods. In the second year of the course, HL candidates will be revisit this topic, focusing primarily on qualitative methods.

Objectives of the Unit:

  • Understand the different ways in which psychologists carry out research.
  • Understand the advantages and disadvantages of various methodologies.
  • Understand the difficulties in attaining an appropriate sample.
  • Apply descriptive statistics to collected data.
  • Analyze a piece of research with regard to the application of sample selection, method employed, statistics applied, and conclusions reached.
Content:
Ethics
Experimental Design
    • Responsibility to the profession of psychology.
    • Competence and personal conduct of the investigator
    • Informed consent
    • Respect for participant integrity
    • Justification for using deception
    • Participant's right of withdrawal
    • Confidentiality of findings
    • Debriefing
    • Use of non-human animals in research

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

Considerations in designing experiments

  • Independent and dependent variables
  • Confounding variables
  • Experimental, control, and placebo groups
  • Research bias and expectancy
  • Demand characteristics
  • Single and double-blind techniques

Experimental Designs

  • Independent samples design
  • Matched Pairs design
  • Repeated Measures design

Sampling Procedures

  • Random selection of participants and random assignment to groups
  • Random and representative samples
  • Stratified and systematic sampling

Simple Descriptive Statistics

  • Measures of central tendency: mean, median, mode
  • Measures of dispersion: standard deviation, range, variance

Supplementary Readings