PY2103:

Introduction to Scientific
Approaches in Psychology
Prepared and presented by
Dr Amanda Krause
Dr Lidia Suarez
Dr Jose Yong
 About the subject and
About me teaching arrangements
• Read all announcements/emails
• Be aware of the assessments
• Practice Quiz: 27 May, not assessed
• Quiz 1: 3 June, 10%
• Research report: 1,500-word report due 18 July, 40% (can be single or
paired work)
• Quiz 2: 29 July, 10%
• Final exam: 2hr examination, 40 MCQs and 3 SAQs, 40%
• Subject has been condensed to 6 weeks of lectures instead of 10
• Watching the pre-recorded online lectures is essential;
consuming all the videos/materials far in advance of the lessons
can be beneficial
• www.joseyong.com
• I do not design the assessments; we aim to impart as much
• [email protected] knowledge and skill for you to be able to tackle the assessments
• Research interests • Assessments are designed to help you learn and at least pass the
• Evolutionary psychology, social psychology, subject
mating, attraction, romantic relationships, • The aim is to impart sufficient basic knowledge so that you can
culture, motivation, competition, spirituality, independently learn more
organizational behavior and group processes,
complexity science • Research methods (and stats) is essential to studying psychology;
will look difficult the first time you encounter it
• Other interests
• Techno/psychedelic trance, whiskey, football, • Try your best, and do not be afraid to reach out; the teaching
running, art staff will try our best to coordinate and deliver
1. Understanding Scientific Research
• Learning objectives
• Understand the importance of studying research methods and statistics
• Define and differentiate different ways of acquiring knowledge
• Describe the assumptions, characteristics, and objectives of science
How do we know things?
• Ways to acquire information/knowledge
• Intuition, gut feeling
• Anecdotal evidence (e.g., hearsay), personal experience
• Popular and media messages
• Authority (e.g., parents, government, organizational leaders)
• Ideology (e.g., gender, capitalism, religion)
• Pseudoscience (e.g., astrology, conspiracy theories)
• Rationalism (reasoning according to “true” premises,
philosophy)
• Empiricism (careful observation; seeing is believing)
• Science is a combination of rationalism + empiricism =
empirical reasoning, achieved through proper research
What are research methods?
• Rigorous processes used to understand or investigate phenomena
• In the context of psychology and social sciences, research aims to
study or uncover “experiences, events, and facts in social reality”
(Neuman, 2014)
• Hard vs soft sciences?
Why research methods?
• Research methods are important!
• Scientific, systematic, rigorous
• Reduces bias
• Helps us to understand human psychology
and behavior
• Knowledge from social research is applied to
important fields like education, social work,
organizations, marketing, law enforcement,
politics etc
• Helps us to assess the accuracy (e.g.,
validity, reliability) of “facts”
• e.g., how accurate is a theory? how effective is
a psychological intervention or treatment?
Why research methods?
• Conducting good research using sound methods
is important because bad research
• wastes everyone’s time if the findings are not valid, a
form of misinformation
• can be unethical or harmful if incorrect ideas/findings
are used
• e.g., Tourette’s and psychoanalysis, the case of David Reimer
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLFGMWoQaCU)
• undermines the legitimacy of our discipline
• e.g., Diedrik Stapel’s fraudulent studies
(https://bps.stanford.edu/?page_id=4949)
Science
• Basic assumptions
• Discoverable reality (e.g., in nature, the world, the
universe, the mind)
• We can observe it either directly (positivism, objective,
quantitative) or indirectly (constructivism, subjective,
qualitative)
• if a tree fell in the forest and no one heard it fall, did it fall?
• e.g., biological sex vs. gender identity, objective SES vs subjective
SES
• Regularity of reality
• enables prediction, causality, generalization, replication, e.g.,
• assuming constant conditions, water is expected to boil at 100°C
everytime
• hours of sleep is correlated with alertness, IQ is correlated with
school achievement
Science
• Characteristics of science
• Control
• Operationalism
• Replicable
• Falsifiability
• e.g., invisible sock gnome; black swans
• Parsimony
Science
• Characteristics of scientists
• Skepticism
• Curiosity
• Patience
• Objectivity
• Tolerance/openness to change
• Objectives of science
• Describe
• Explain
• Predict
• Control
2. Research Approaches and Types of Variables
• Learning objectives
• Distinguish between quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods
approaches
• Identify and describe the key characteristics of experimental and
nonexperimental research approaches
• Compare and contrast the advantages and disadvantages of
quantitative/qualitative and experimental/nonexperimental research
• Explain the nature of causation and the necessary conditions for it
• Define the different types of variables involved in quantitative research
Types of research
• Descriptive
• Observing, recording and describing behavior
• e.g., there is A and there is B
• Correlational/predictive
• Observing, recording and describing behavior
• Detecting relationships; making predictions
• e.g., A is related to B, so knowing A allows you to predict B
• Causal
• Observing, recording and describing behavior
• Detecting relationships; making predictions
• Determining cause-and-effect and temporality
• e.g., A causes B
• correlation ≠ causation!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMUQSMFGBDo
What is an experiment?
• Often considered the most rigorous form of quantitative research
• High level of control
• Standardization of unimportant (“extraneous”)
factors
• Manipulation of conditions or “independent
variables”

• Allows for examination of causal relationships among variables of interest

Independent vs dependent variable
• Independent variable (IV)
• Variable that is assumed to cause changes in
another variable
• Also known as the predictor or causal variable
• Dependent variable (DV)
• Variable that is assumed to be influenced by
the IV(s)
• Variable that measures the effect of the IV
• Also known as the outcome variable
• IV  DV
• IV predicts the DV; or DV depends on the IV
Types of experimental research

Advantages Disadvantages

High control and ability Artificiality,

Laboratory
to eliminate influence questionable
experiments
of extraneous variables generalizability
Harder to control
Field experiments Realistic
extraneous variables
Easy to administer,
easy access to diverse Lack of experimenter
Online experiments
populations, control
inexpensive
Types of non-experimental research
• No artificial manipulation of IV(s)

Advantages Disadvantages

Provides a sense of how Causation is often

Correlational study
variables are related incorrectly inferred

Borrows from a natural or

Causation is often
Natural manipulation actual occurrence to
incorrectly inferred
simulate manipulation
Allows causation to be
Difficult and costly to
Longitudinal study inferred without
administer
manipulation
Variables in quantitative research
• In a study, each participant is expected to have a specific value (e.g.,
male or female; low or high) for each variable (e.g., sex; test
performance)
• The nature of these values indicates the level of measurement for a
variable
1. Nominal
2. Ordinal
3. Interval
4. Ratio
• Mnemonic memorizing tip: “NOIR” (French for “black”)
Variables in quantitative research

• e.g., race timings (higher precision/detail) vs race rank (lower precision/detail)

Variables in quantitative research
• Example: ADHD (A) is correlated with being overweight (B)
• What are the IV and the DV?

• Mediating (or intervening) variable:

a variable that occurs between two other variables
in a chain

• Moderating variable:
a variable that “moderates” or influences/regulates
a relationship between two variables; how A and B
are linked now depends on the moderator

• Extraneous (or confounding) variable: variable that

might compete with the IV in explaining the outcome
Types of qualitative research
• Thematic analysis, interpretative
phenomenological analysis,
critical analysis
• Non-numerical, no variables
• Data is obtained from
• people’s descriptions of their
subjective experience
• researcher’s descriptions of
people’s behavior
• Findings are based on
researcher’s interpretations
Overview of types of research
Types of research illustrated
What factors determine academic Study strategies of college students: Are Factors influencing achievement in
achievement in high achieving self-testing and scheduling related to undergraduate social science research
undergraduate medical students? achievement methods courses