Research Ideas: Origins and Development

Where Research Ideas Begin

• Research questions stem from researcher curiosity and a variety of sources and motivations
• Development of ideas occurs in a social context
• Investigators may study an event that captures their interest
• A specific question needing an answer or a problem to be solved can drive research
• Researchers sometimes aim to test theories
• Being aware of other scientists' work prevents repetition and advances knowledge
• Generating new questions is aided by such knowledge
• Scientific publications and conference presentations are information sources
• Searching for prior work relevant to one's research question becomes more effective with more research exposure
• Reading journal articles or listening to presentations from other researchers provides insight into their research process, accomplishments, and results
• The types of questions researchers ask and how they ask them are affected by the social context of their lives
• Potential for research projects arise when encountering behavior not fully understood
• Research questions may stem from observing something in everyday life that the researcher wishes to study
• Some research ideas exclusively come from curiosity about a behavior without previous theory/research driving them
• Solving practical questions can motivate research
• Evaluating others’ work or projects can lead to a research idea
• A well-defined theory represents the most formal way to develop a research idea
• A theory's predictions of behaviors can be tested by researchers
• Existing ideas that can be tested empirically lead to most research
• Investigators’ interests often drive research ideas
• Ethical concerns have shifted interest away from animal research
• A contemporary cognitive orientation shift has influenced psychologist's movement away from animal research and behaviorism
• Neuroscience is a growing area of psychological research
• Behaviorism and psychoanalytic theory infrequently appear in research literature
• Conducting research in an area with less existing research can be advantageous due to less required background reading

Developing Research Ideas

• Acquiring knowledge across various fields is the first step
• A broader knowledge base increases the ability to combine ideas into unique projects
• Introspection about your own experiences and using your thoughts can generate research questions
• Adapting ideas from research in a particular field to a new field is suggested
• McGuire (1983) suggested evaluating common sense ideas to test their validity
• Connecting research on sports and physical disabilities can yield interesting projects, as these topics usually aren't combined

Research on the Internet

• Specialized lab space is required for some psychological research
• Direct contact is needed to measure specific real-time behaviors or responses
• The concept of the physical laboratory is changing
• The internet now removes the need to be physically present with participants
• The internet's effectiveness should be utilized by creative researchers
• Online research projects are available
• University students respond more to internet surveys
• Consumers respond more to mailed surveys
• Mailed surveys benefitted from follow-up reminders more than internet surveys
• Those with lower incomes have more accessible internet at accessible locations compared to higher income people
• Teens gravitate towards social networking and entertainment more, while adults choose email and research.
• The nature and results of research samples can be significantly impacted by these differences.
• When conducting online study you want to maximize the return of your work and reach the target audience
• Contacting respondents via telephone calls, internet, mail, or interactive voice response in addition to persistance provides the best research results
• Obtaining respondents a second time is achieved through other methods
• Additional contact has boosted response rates in certain instances
• E-mail techniques elicit quicker responses
• Regardless of notification method, the quality of data is comparable
• Online surveys offer practical advantages
• As researchers learn the elements of successful internet surveys, their use may increase

Creating Internet-Based Research - Important Factors

• Researchers need to be familiar with related research to improve methods and identify useful measurements
• Simple, informative, and attractive webpages will promote participant engagement and completion rates
• Following the rules and regulations about ethics in research is paramout
• Obtain participants’ informed consent, ensuring they can terminate participation. and that their data can be included in the study analysis
• Legal constraints exist for obtaining consent from minors
• Offering a sufficient explanation of your study will education participants about your research
• Thoroughly check new websites and perform tests of web pages over multiple machines
• Discover how to disseminate information related to your study and where to advertise it

Replication in Research

• Replication refers to repeating investigations to verify the initial results
• Exact replication is an exact repetition of an earlier investigation
• Replication with extension asks the same question, but expands on the initial knowledge
• Conceptual replication approaches the same question differently
• Replication serves to verifying results and avoid errors
• Checks on reliability and assist in avoiding type 1 and type 2 errors
• It also provides support for theories
• Construct validity can be increase by making diverse measurements of the same concept
• Replication helps protect against fraud
• Journals are hesitant to publish replications
• Researchers may be reluctant to submit replications
• Generating new information through original research is more highly rewarded
• Research replication funds may be limited
• Researchers may fail to give enough information for others to replicate

Literature Review

• The term literature refers to high-quality work in technical journals
• A literature review discusses relevant previous studies when presenting a journal article or giving a conference presentation
• Articles from peer-reviewed journals has serious weight from experts
• Peer-reviewed sources involve scrutiny and revisions for publication
• The most credible psychology publications accept 30% or less of submitted articles
• Additional work is requested by editors and reviewers to address problems like ambiguities and uncertainties
• Using an electronic database is the simplest ways to conduct a literature review
• The APA (American Psychological Association) publishes PsycINFO, which is a database that is useful for psychologists
• PsycINFO is a successor to Psychological Abstracts (PA), which was discontinued in 2006
• The simplest strategy is selecting a point of interest and requesting PsycINFO to find published articles associated with with this
• It is unfeasible to read every source if produces a large number of citations
• Limit the search by listing citations that include your term as keywords or descriptors
• Using PsycINFO's thesaurus to narrow the term or setting limits on the search process can futher reduce irrelevant results
• An asterisk expands search to expand more information if a small amount of search results are created
• Synonyms can be identified using the database's thesaurus for various points of interest

Citable Resource Types

• When researchers write reports, they are primary sources
• Publication in a peer-reviewed journal indicates a high sense article value
• Secondary sources referr to research by another researcher, describing the methodologies, results, and interpritations.
• Secondary sources should be used with discretion, primary sources are preferable
• Tertiary sources consist of descriptions built on top of another
• Distortion increases the further from the orginal research is
• Some sources, but others tailored for general public
• Popular information is less applicable for scientific reasons but can be a starting point
• According to Beins et al (2012), Wikipedia is an example of such source

How to Read a Journal Article and the APA Format

• Psychology research articles use APA style guidelines from the APA's Publication Manual
• APA papers includes an Abstract, Introduction, Method, Results, Discussion, & References
• Abstract sections are brief, including 150-250 words with an overview of a paper
• A concise overview of the research is delivered in the abstract
• The research question and hypotheses, the method, the results, and a discussion are presented
• The introduction provides background information, offers a preview of how the study will be conducted, and gives specific tests of hypotheses
• In the introduction, context and logic is offered from former data to the author's
• A study should contain methods and processes that could allow the project to be replicated
• Participants, materials and apparatus and procedure are sections described in the project.
• Detailed detail regarding to the nature of participants is provided, as well as what occurs for session data collection
• Qualitative and quantitative results are displayed in the "Results" section
• It consists of analyses tests with patterns such as t-test and f-test
• Understanding statistical test is paramount
• An interpreation and meaning to the outcome of statistical data is described in the the discussion
• Relations to behaviour of results are explained
• Reference sections holds details on not only published, but sometimes also presented sources
• Refers to articles taken from sources, chapter books, comms that were given, etc

Practical Questions in Research Planning

• Researchers must make numerous choices in their studies
• Complex and abstranct ideas must be researched
• Concrete assessment of abstract concepts are required
• Stress or sadness should drive people from an emotional state
• The way that your research projects will be conducted must be pondered once a final research project

Studying Behaviour

• Measurable insights are derived, even if multiple measure may be easy to make
• Creativity must be defined and measurable
• It provides alternative to the common approaches from others
• The ratings of superviors, instructors, and outcomes can contribute to the definition of creativity
• It includes ratings of workers, studends, test, amount of outcomes/correlations, etc
• Investigating the level of satisfaction is key
• Participants should be asked to rate own performance upon completion of drawing tasks
• Satisfaction has been observed to drop if participants' work in a creative is compared

Measuring Complex Concepts

• You must convert core ideas into solid concepts
• This needs the discovery of clear definition complex terms
• Operational Definitions is a way to measure and characterize variables
• Variable of “creativity” may stem ratings, test scores, others, self's
• Concepts of intrest is a variable and may deviate in different values
• People can have varying levels of creativity on tasks
• The concepts in psychology might be difficult to describe, and operational definitions are the solution
• Constructs and feelings are typically what stress and motivation tend to consist of
• It is a hypothesis that something is real but that is just a speculation
• Adequate measurement is paramount when dealing with theoretical/hypothetical concepts
• When measuring stress, you have to use an operational definition and determine which concept you must use

SRRS and Examples

• The Social Readjustment Scale (SRRS) indicates the amount of change by Holmes & Rahe (1967)
• Holmes & Rahe measures the amount of change that a person experiences within life to
• For example, poses episodes such as the death of a spoyse
• The SRRS was updated to show which of the changes had significant impacts on an individual
• Thus, this change contributed to which degree of "stress" and also to the culture

Culture Importance

• People's cultures react differetly
• The same reaction in the US varies greatly from areas, such as in Japan
• The amount of change correlates to the different ranges of stress
• Stress is impact is affected by life stages
• Students are often affected by roommate issues, whereas working people deal with mortgages
• The ways for concepts to be clear can always be strengthened
• Researchers' methods can all measure what works during adapation strategies and stress as well
• The independent variable defines one type of variable when researchers make experiments

Approaches

• This variables is manipulates to determine the nature of the person or behaviour being changed
• A tattoo can determine the help and/or behaviour to a person
• Dependant can change when the method of persuation has different results

Search of the Literature

• Identify ranges for approaching
• Avoid repetition when others discovered, create something new and test new and exciting things
• See which approaches work for different individuals, even if all have already been used and identified

Conducting Study Best Practices

• Manipulate and control your situation instead of just seeing what comes naturally
• Experimental is important and it makes the exposure of participants less of ethical issue
• Can't often manipulate variables because of ethical and practical reasons
• Stress, for example, must be identified with less interaction, as one method monitors how the monitored acts during periods of stressful or less-stressful situations
• Second method may consist about a source and inquiries within questionnaire
• A third strategy is the way a subject responds from a certain manipulation

Conduction Results

• Higher levels of stress, more and severe levels of how often catch a cold
• Inducing in a setting is a fourth strategy; However, it can lead to unethical implications
• Stresses and implications should be different with methods that are useful
• Slight portrayal and different effects can result if questions are asked differently
• Each approach is valid through methodology and have pros and cons

Research Settings

• Where must the research be carried out

• Formal lab settings need high levels of equipment and environments

• Variables must be eliminated with laboratories for effectiveness and to see if interested

• Typical experiments have variables with unclear small side effects that provide an interesting take

• The opposite comes when the topic regards application with application to things such a businesses.

• Decisions often involve whether testing must be done individually or as a group

• Different behavior is conducted when other people present, and the behavior may change in front of others

Kinds of Reseach

• In nature you often take information in with practical approaches instead of asking practical questions
• Theoretical research is more likely to occur within the labs instead of direct tests

Alternative Approaches

• Connecting if high levels are connected to learning
• Decsions pertain during manipulations depending if natural or whether stress has been handled
• Observation relies on how one's own behaviour is reflected based on interactions
• Observing is a descriptive approach
• The methods is varied to the type of situation
• There would be someone's current levels that relate to its behaviours.
• Covariations within correlational means the ethical problems are dodged, yet do not explain if stress elevates or reduces
• It describes in better form and quality, some other factors causing change which can be labeled as a "nuisance variable"

Key Points

• Connection may still exist without a cause
• No cause doesn't always imply a correlation that might otherwise show itself as stress
• Describing and predicting between connections cannot demonstrate which correlations caused others with research, can only say between stress and learning.
• To see the effects and what will become, manipulating is a better use
• Manipluation with independent variables is important to check what the end result of a dependent will give
• Conrolling situations grants an advantage for an experiment
• Methods can be to split them in groups and determine which results the most differenly

Studies

• Compares groups for a result different from the different variables, such as age or between man and woman
• It is called "Quasi experiment" if people come belonging to one category

Methodology

• Case study: individual levels and what grades they do
• Case studies display results typically with a few
• Longitudinal: we use the methods to collect over times in many situations
• This provides for what will result over decades for the observations can keep continuing and coming

Outcomes

• This often gives advantages such as what kind of short term effects will be
• Archival research occurs more often Archival
• Records: investigation such as books or artifacts more than direct communication such as from the person
• Insights show correlations with variables and what educational skills they have achieved.
• Qualitavite research will increase in what numerical data show and how the naturation and what kind of setting there can be
• Textural information can help charaxterize reactions
• How well learning and feeling can work on different people based on how each person functions.
• Methodology varies but have different dis/advantages

Selecting Materials To Be Used

• Materials and appretus which you can use will be key
• Key to use classroom and sylibai to try the outcomes
• Choice can also be critical
• No deep thoughts on material and what needs to get learned
• There are tasks that show higher preformacne, or ones that may require much.
• Methodology and decisions on test participants that help become critical
• Research has show common words have better recally from some studies
• Other ones show less words are easier to remember

Conficting

• Different ways to measure memory
• Recall
• Recognize.
• Common tend to assist people more than less
• Identifying (recognize) which word is best and was during learning

Outcomes

• The key is to not do memory check and learn the types

Subjets and Paricipnts

• Interested is the group we intend to use which leads to a population
• University students make it a university of students to constitude what population
• Use a limited subset, not to what is a "smaple"
• Representative must have similar characteristics and be the best choice. what can happen at your time

Facts about Participants

• Research can be typically the USA students
• Not clear is if samples has any connections
• Process and composition that makes a samples can not always have
• Diverse groups can become to diffcult for a time comsuming and research and may resist
• There is typically the choice when it needs to be to do a diversities

Participant Counts

• The larger = more effort
• smaller = better to have an increase in statistical significance
• The higher liky that there is a real change in sample
• Smaller could overlook
• Variability may alter outcomes and may impact how the setting is altered

Homogenous

• Effect may be more effective if results do to manipulation
• Too much will make a chance to determine the alteration
• To look will have big or small effect:

Factors

• relaxed, improve
• Small treamment is prob unlikely
• The ones for teacher smiling: more effective, more difference

Sample

• More= find small but relevant differences
• Less: BIG effect
• Manip = too less, can make better difference with others
• Practical, small and effective and show is important

Probability and Sampling

• Equal chance is key for all
• Some forego this in favour of what easy
• generalise to larger population
• define interest, member what results what comes what is important

Strata

• Equal
• Limited since RS can be biased
• More of one than other is very likley
• Proportation is how RS helps improve in character
• variable for stratification exists, but so to does a easier to manage character variables which makes for variables easily identified.

Sampling

• Can look at clusters
• Interview will only show for whom live there as will be biased

Non-Probability

• Not always what used, but use if it can
• what often known, result generalized.
• know result like we, other better others
• When should inc, never
• When shuld inc
• Unforuntaelty find hard general

Not Interested

• Just theoreize
• Theore = same with teste