Research Methods PDF

Week 2: Research Methods Why do we need research? Facilitated communication Doing research Determine your research Operationalize Identify your Create your Obtain ethics question and study study Do research! variabl...

Week 2: Research Methods Why do we need research? Facilitated communication Doing research Determine your research Operationalize Identify your Create your Obtain ethics question and study study Do research! variables participants materials approval hypothesis What is your research question? What are you interested in? What do you want to study? Common sense assumptions Observations in the real world Solving real-world problems Understanding how something works Who are your research participants? Populations vs. samples Population à entire group of people of interest (e.g., all PSYC1010 students at York) Sample à smaller group of people, drawn from the population, who participate in the study (e.g., a group of 20 students who actually do your study)  Random selection: a key ingredient for generalizability! Choosing participants from a larger population in such a way that every person has an equal chance of being selected Helps to ensure sample accurately represents population Important for studies seeking generalizability (e.g., experiments) Operational definition: what do you really mean? Translating your research question into specific, testable procedures that can be measured & observed. How could we operationalize the following concepts? 1. Studying aggression in children 2. Measuring stress levels in college students 3. Examining online harassment 4. Sleep quality The Methods Toolbox Naturalistic Case study Self report Correlational Experimental observation measures and designs designs surveys