Research designs in psychology pdf

Watson and Rayner made no existed, it should be clear why one was needed. The authors were the famous behaviorist John ethical guidelines that were published several decades after B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner, a graduate student who they completed their study.

The study tested ated in the context of their own times. They decided to ditioned to be afraid. Despite serious methodological weak- proceed because Albert seemed to be a strong, healthy nesses and failed replication attempts Harris, , the child. Watson and Rayner decided to use Two other examples are studies by Myrtle McGraw and by loud noise, produced when Watson struck a steel bar with a Wayne Dennis, both published in To see if the fear interested in nervous system maturation, a legitimate topic could be attached to a neutral stimulus, a white rat, the con- of study.

The pin. BOX 2. Eventually, resulted from the environmental deprivation. Today, research Dennis was interested in studying how early psychologists sometimes use animals in procedures that development would be affected by reducing environmen- would not be considered appropriate for humans, and rais- tal and social stimulation. From a local hospital, Dennis ing them briefly in isolation is an example. The twins spent 14 months by people who believed they were advancing their science.

These studies the top of a tree ; the room contained little furniture and no make the need for an ethics code clear. Developing a Code of Ethics for Psychological Science After World War II, the United States and its allies conducted the Nuremberg trials to hold Nazi officers, doctors, and others associated with them accountable for various war atrocities. One lasting legacy that emerged from these trials was the Nuremberg Code of ethics , which emphasized the importance of voluntary consent from individuals involved in medical research.

You can review the complete Nuremberg code online at the Student Companion Site or by doing a simple Google search. Psychologists in the United States published their first formal code of ethics in APA, , and it was influenced by the Nuremberg code. The document was the outcome of about 15 years of discussion within the APA, which had created a temporary committee on scientific and professional ethics in the late s.

This soon became a standing committee to investigate complaints of unethical behavior usually concerned with the professional practice of psychol- ogy that occasionally were brought to its attention. In , this group recommended the crea- tion of a formal code of ethics.

The request yielded over 1, replies. Although most con- cerned the practice of psychology e. Milgram, who was Jewish, was motivated by questions about the Nazi Holocaust and deeply concerned about the problem of obedience to authority. During the Nuremberg trials, a common defense used by Nazi war criminals was that they were just following orders. Did the Holocaust reflect some basic flaw in the German psyche? Or is the tendency to obey authority found in all of us, produced when the circumstances are right?

To answer his own questions, he developed his now famous research on obedience to authority. In the guise of a study on the effects of physical punishment on learning, Milgram induced volunteers to obey commands from an authority figure, the experimenter who was actually a member of the research team and a high school biology teacher in real life.

In his original study, Milgram reported he had Courtesy of Dr. Within 20 minutes he was reduced to a twitching, stuttering wreck, and was rapidly approaching a point of nervous collapse. Milgram completed his obedience studies in the s and early s, which was a time in the United States when significant societal changes were taking place. The Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act were passed by Congress and contributed to growing movement toward civil rights for all Americans.

In part, the civil rights movement in American culture emphasized basic equality and dignity among individuals and created a heightened aware- ness of instances of inequality and mistreatment of vulnerable groups. One such group whose plight had finally come to light in the s included poor Black men from the area around Tuskegee, Alabama, who were diagnosed with syphilis, but deliberately left untreated so that researchers could study the development of the disease over time see Box 2.

In , the commission published what came to be called the Belmont Report, which includes three basic principles for research with human subjects: Respect for persons, Beneficence, and Justice. You can review the entirety of the Belmont Report online at the Student Companion Site or by doing a simple Google search. Over the years, the APA ethics code has been revised several times, most recently in It currently includes a set of 5 general principles and 89 standards, the latter clustered into the 10 general categories.

The five general principles reflect the philosophical basis for the code as a whole. These prin- ciples apply broadly to the science and practice of psychology. As they apply to research, they can be described as follows: A. Beneficence and Nonmaleficence establishes the principle that psychologists must con- stantly weigh the benefits and the costs of the research they conduct and seek to achieve the greatest good in their research with little harm done to others.

Fidelity and Responsibility obligates researchers to be constantly aware of their responsi- bility to society and reminds them always to exemplify the highest standards of profes- sional behavior in their role as researchers.

Integrity compels researchers to be scrupulously honest in all aspects of the research enterprise. Justice obligates researchers to treat everyone involved in the research enterprise with fair- ness and to maintain a level of expertise that reduces the chances of their work showing any form of bias. Ethical Guidelines for Research with Humans There are many similarities between the principles of the Belmont Report and those of the APA Code, including some very similar language. Now, we turn to how psychological scientists apply these ethical principles in their research.

How was the critical incidents technique used when the first APA ethics code was being developed? What are the three basic principles of the Belmont Report? Ethical Guidelines for Research with Humans In the s, a portion of the original ethics code was elaborated into a separate code of ethics designed for research with human participants.

In general, the standards for research with human participants include making a judgment that the benefits of the research outweigh the costs, gaining the informed consent of those participating in the study, and treating the research volunteers well during the course of the study and after it has been completed.

At a minimum, people are asked to spend time in an experiment when they could be doing something else. At the other extreme, they are sometimes placed in potentially harmful situations. In the name of psychological science, human research participants or subjects4 have received elec- trical shocks, been told they failed some apparently easy test, and been embarrassed in any num- ber of ways. Department of Health and Human Services.

Its website is www. In the early 20th cen- tury, during the era of introspection Chapter 1 , participants were often called observers because their task was to observe what was going on in their minds during some task and then give an introspective report of it. As introspection went out of vogue, participants began to be called subjects. Starting with the fourth edition of its publication manual, in , however, the APA mandated a change in this usage for articles published in APA journals.

At least with regard to most humans nonhuman animals and preverbal infants were still to be referred to as subjects , APA required writers to use research participant or participant instead of subject, apparently on the grounds that the latter term was somehow biased and dehumanizing. This change was widely criticized e. The basic dilemma faced by Milgram and every other researcher is to weigh the scientific value of the research being planned a benefit against the degree of intrusion on those contributing data to the study a cost.

On one hand, psychological scientists believe strongly in the need to conduct psychological research on a wide range of topics. Indeed, they believe that failing to investigate abdicates their responsibility as scientists. An integral part of the process of planning a study involves consulting with others.

A good first step is to ask a researcher colleague whether your study has any ethical pitfalls. In a university or college setting, this group consists of at least five people, usually faculty members from several departments and including at least one member of the outside community and a minimum of one nonscientist Department of Health and Human Services, Today, IRBs are found in virtually all colleges and universities, whether or not fed- eral funding is involved.

IRBs distinguish between proposals that are exempt from full review, those eligible for expedited review, and those requiring a full review.

For research in psychology, proposals that are exempt from full review include studies conducted in an educa- tional setting for training purposes e. Proposals receiving expedited review include many of the typical psychology laboratory experiments in basic processes such as memory, attention, or perception, in which participants will not experi- ence uncomfortable levels of stress or have their behavior manipulated in any significant fashion.

All other research usually requires a full review by the entire IRB committee. As you might guess, there are gray areas concerning decisions about exempt, expedited, and full review. Hence, it is common practice for universities to ask that all research be given some degree of examination by the IRB.

At medium and large universities, where the number of proposals might overwhelm a single committee, departmental IRBs are sometimes created to handle the expedited reviews Murphy, Sometimes, there is no risk at all, as when experimenters observe public behavior and do not intervene in any way.

However, if that same study investigated whether the improvement due to training in imagery could be reduced by having participants ingest some drug, the degree of risk to participants would obviously be higher and require more careful scrutiny by an IRB.

When there is minimal or no risk, IRB approval is usually routinely granted through an expe- dited review, or the proposal will be judged exempt from review. One final point about IRB approval is that when conducting research outside of the university environment, a researcher might have to satisfy more than a single review board. A health psy- chologist, for instance, might be using a local wellness center as a location for studying adher- ence to an exercise program.

IRBs provide an effective safeguard for participants, researchers, and universities, but they are controversial for three reasons. One issue is the extent to which IRBs should be judging the details of research procedures and designs Kimmel, On the other hand, a poorly designed study has ethical implications. If it is seriously flawed methodologically, its results will be worth- less, its participants could be harmed needlessly, and, at a minimum, their time will be wasted.

A second problem is that some researchers complain about IRBs being overzealous in their concern about risk, weighing it more heavily than warranted, relative to the scientific value of a study. For instance, a researcher described by Kimmel was unable to obtain IRB approval for a study in which people were asked to detect tones of varying loudness. Obviously, not all IRBs are this arbitrary and inflexible, but the lack of an appeal process is a problem.

Some studies have suggested that researchers, if they believe they have been treated unfairly by an IRB, might go as far as to omit from their IRB proposals some aspects of their procedure the IRB could find objectionable.

Instead, it seemed that in the articles they read, sub- jects spent most of their time filling out surveys or describing how they or others might behave in some hypothetical situation. But another reason, Baumeister et al.

Measuring meaningful social behavior as in the helping behavior example usually means using deception, and it there- fore places more of a burden on researchers to show their participants will be protected. Although Baumeister et al. A third issue that concerns psychologists is that IRBs sometimes overemphasize a biomedical research model to evaluate proposals.

As a result, they might ask researchers to respond to requests that are not relevant for most psychological research. For example, they might ask that the consent form include information about procedures or alternative courses of treatment avail- able to those who choose not to participate in the study Azar, This makes sense for research evaluating the effectiveness of some medical treatment but makes no sense in most psychological research, where the alternative to participating is simply not to participate.

Susan Fiske , a prominent social psychologist and former chair of the IRB at Princeton University, recommended that universities sponsoring medical research should create separate IRBs for medical and behavioral research. One unfortunate consequence of these three issues is a lack of consistency among IRBs.

Children viewing the video would then be interviewed to determine their ideas about why the child actor might have lied. The identical IRB proposal, however, had been approved by IRBs at two other universities, had been found ethically acceptable by the National Science Foundation which was funding the research , and was judged harmless by a panel of pediatricians and child development specialists.

Despite these issues, the primary goal of IRBs is to evaluate any ethical concerns that may arise during the course of the proposed research study.

Because IRBs are comprised diverse members and may not include psychologists, they are often guided by the Nuremberg code or Belmont Report, which are broader in scope than the APA code.

However, it is the responsibility of the psychology researcher to adhere to the APA code when proposing to the IRB psychological research involving humans because the APA code both encapsulates the Nuremberg code and Belmont Report as well as expands upon them.

For example, the use of painful procedures in a study e. Consent procedures evolved from the aftermath of his- torical abuses, most notably the medical research conducted in Germany during World War II that used concentration camp inmates as human guinea pigs. Their argument failed, they were convicted, and the presiding tribunal wrote what was called the Nuremberg Code mentioned earlier.

Although the experiments performed on concentration camp victims are the most dramatic and appalling examples of consent violations, problems have occurred in the United States as well. See Box 2. The research activities of doctors in the Third Reich are a way that more could be learned about it? Indeed, although unprecedented in their callousness and cruelty. Nonetheless, the study has been legitimately criticized on ethical grounds, there are cases in the United States of research projects that it did contribute to the understanding of hepatitis and have provoked intensely critical reactions and have invited improved treatment of the disease.

Jones, Beginning in the early s, about poor At Willowbrook, an institution housing children with vary- Black men from the rural South were diagnosed with the dis- ing degrees of mental disability, an experiment began in ease and deliberately left untreated.

They were never and continued into the s in which approximately 1 informed about the nature of the disease, nor were they told in 10 new admissions was purposely infected with hepatitis.

The Willowbrook study was investigating induce coerce? Like Willowbrook, itary and led to the spread of the disease. By deliberately the Tuskegee study contributed to our understanding of a infecting new admissions and placing them in a separate serious disease, but its value was vastly overshadowed by ward but not treating them, the researchers hoped to study the consent violations.

Those in charge of the project defended it on the Tuskegee studies were misguided in their abuse of the grounds that the children would almost certainly contract informed consent concept, they had a strong desire to learn the disease anyway, so why not have them contract it in such as much as possible about two devastating diseases,.

The third example of a consent viola- h examining the effects of repeated doses over 77 consecu- tion, unfortunately, lacked even the justification of an even- tive days in one case , and even surreptitiously giving the tual medical benefit. Prompted by an erroneous numerous others were adversely affected by it.

He was offered various ies on unwitting participants, often soldiers but sometimes incentives to participate in the program, including a liberal members of the general public. Soldiers signed consent leave policy. Thereafter, Mr. He did not would not reveal their participation.

That secrecy was impor- learn that he had received LSD. Rockefeller Report, Precautions must be taken. The program ground to a halt have serious repercussions in political and diplomatic circles. Projects included giv- any useful military information. Typical consent forms contain several features. First, potential volunteers agree to participate after learning the general purpose of the study but not the specific hypotheses , the basic proce- dure, and the amount of time needed for the session.

Second, participants understand they can leave the session at any time without penalty and with no pressure to continue. This feature is closely related. Despite the methodological changes designed to placate his university IRB, the study found levels of obedience similar to those observed by Milgram. Fourth, if questions linger about the study or if they wish to complain about their treatment as participants, there are specific people to contact, includ- ing someone from the IRB.

Finally, participants are informed of any risk that might be encoun- tered in the study, and they are given the opportunity to receive a summary of the results of the study, once it has been completed. When writing a consent form, researchers try to avoid jargon, with the aim of making the form as easy to understand as possible.

This revision is found in Standard 8. Participants must also be informed of the method by which people have been assigned to the treatment and control groups. Although informed consent is essential in most research in psychology, it is important to note that consent is not required for research that is exempt from full review. As Standard 8. Informed Consent and Special Populations Not all research participants are capable of giving consent, due to factors as age or disability, and some persons might experience undue coercion to volunteer for research e.

In these circumstances, additional procedures apply. For example, the Society for Research in Child Development SRCD follows a set of guidelines that expand upon some of the provisions of the code for adults. Thus, because children anyone under age 18 might not be able to fully under- stand consent forms, their parents or legal guardians are the ones who give consent.

Nonetheless, unless the participant is an infant or is otherwise not capable of skilled language use, researchers are obligated to inform the child about the study and to gain what is referred to as assent.

That is, researchers give the child as much information as possible to gauge whether the child is willing to participate. Assent also means the researcher has a responsibility to monitor experiments with children and to stop them if it appears that undue stress is being experienced.

It is up to the researcher to be sensitive enough to remove the child from the task at hand and repair the damage if the stress level is too high. In addition to the assent provision, the SRCD code requires that additional consent be obtained from others who might be involved with the study in any way. For example, this would include teachers when a study includes their students.

Finally, the SRCD code mirrors the provisions of the code for adults, but warns researchers to be even more vigilant in certain areas. Additional provisions for the protection of participants exist with other special populations. Thus, legal guardians must give truly informed consent for research with people who are con- fined to institutions e. Second, it is imperative to ensure that partici- pants do not feel coerced into volunteering for a study.

This problem is difficult to avoid in environments such as prisons because even with the best intentions of researchers, prisoners might believe that their failure to volunteer will cost them in the future and perhaps even affect their future parole status.

In general, researchers tend to rely on simple material rewards e. As was the case for the SRCD code for research with children, the inducements to participate must be reasonable. Another issue with confined populations is confidentiality Kimmel, While normal guidelines for disguising the identity of participants apply, researchers are legally obligated to break confidentiality under circumstances that involve a clear danger e. Finally, as illustrated in Box 2.

You show up at the appropriate time and place and, after being given initial instructions by an experimenter, you and another participant are left alone and given some anagrams to solve anagrams are sets of letters that have to be unscrambled to make a word. After 5 minutes or so, the other person seems to get upset about the difficulty of the task and then storms out of the room.

The experimenter returns, asks you a series of identifying ques- tions about the person who just left e. The experimenter then informs you that the real purpose of the study was eyewitness identification accuracy, not anagram problem solving. How would you react to this? Standard 8. Researchers argue that in the absence of deception in certain studies, participants would not act naturally. How can these apparently contradictory concepts of consent and deception be reconciled?

One could argue that truly informed consent should never result in people being deceived about the purposes of the study. Some e. Others e. They could be given a general rationale for deception during the consent procedure, told that some form of deception would probably occur in the study, and assured that all would be revealed at the end.

Teachers the real subjects tried to teach a list of word pairs to the learner, believing they were shocking him for errors. Milgram was not really interested in learning, of course. Rather, he wanted to know whether his volunteers would a continue to administer apparent shocks of increasing voltage to a learner who was in discomfort and not learning much, or b disobey the experimenter and stop the experiment.

The outcome: Few people disobeyed. In the original study, 26 out of 40 continued shocking the learner even when the voltage level seemed to reach and nobody disobeyed until the level reached volts Milgram, ! Certainly not. Blind obedience to authority is not something people value highly, so subjects told ahead of time they are in a study of obedience would surely be less compliant than they otherwise might be. The point is that researchers want their participants to take the task seriously, to be thoroughly involved in the study, and to behave as naturally as possible.

For that to happen, deception is sometimes neces- sary. Please keep in mind, however, that the Milgram study is an extreme example of deception. Although deception studies with elaborate cover stories are more likely to be found in social psychology than in other research areas Korn, , the level of deception is minor in most research.

Typically, it involves the withholding of some information about the study rather than a cover story that creates the impression that the study concerns topic A when it really involves topic B. That is, most deception research involves omitting some information in the consent pro- cess rather than actively misleading participants about what they are to encounter Fischman, For instance, participants in a memory study might be given a series of five word lists to study and recall, one at a time.

At the end of the session, although not initially informed of it, they might be asked to recall as many words as they could from all five lists.

Information about that final recall would be omitted from the original instructions to get a better measure of the memory for all of the lists, uncontaminated by extra rehearsal. Treating Participants Well Several portions of the ethics code are designed to ensure that volunteers are treated fairly and with respect during their participation, that they receive complete information about the study at its conclusion, that any stress they encounter is relieved, and that their participation is kept pri- vate.

It is important to note this responsibility extends to everyone involved in the running of the study, from the primary researcher to the graduate students or undergraduates who might actually run the experimental sessions. We have already seen the researcher must estimate the amount of risk to participants, with greater amounts of risk creating a greater burden to justify the study. This problem of risk and potential harm is addressed in the standards relating to informed consent and use of deception and once more in Standard 8.

It is not essential that participants be informed about all aspects of the study immediately after their participation. This situation occurs most frequently when some deception is involved, col- lege students are the population under study, and the experimenter is concerned about partici- pants talking to other potential participants classmates. This latter problem, sometimes referred to as participant crosstalk, can ruin a study.

There is evidence that participant crosstalk occurs, especially in situations where participants e. A recent study confirmed the problem still exists by cleverly determining the frequency of its occur- rence. Edlund, Sagarin, Skowronski, Johnson, and Kutter had subjects estimate the num- ber of beans in a jar.

Those participating were then given the correct answer. The question was whether or not these subjects would pass the information along to future participants. The percentage was reduced in a second study, when participants were specifically asked not to reveal the num- ber of beans to others who might participate.

Aside from urging subjects not to discuss the study after their participation, a common strategy for reducing crosstalk, consistent with Standard 8. In general, debriefing serves two related purposes, referred to by Holmes a, b as dehoaxing and desensitizing.

Dehoaxing means revealing to participants the true purpose of the study and the hypotheses being tested or some portion of them , and desensitizing refers to the process of reducing stress or other negative feelings that might have been experienced during participation in the study.

Subjects are also informed that, if they wish, they may have their data removed from the data set. The amount of time spent in debriefing depends on the complexity of the study, the presence and degree of deception, and the level of potential distress. In a study involving deception, the researcher often begins a debriefing session by asking participants if they thought the study had a purpose other than the one initially described.

At this time, the researcher tries to justify the deception e. In most cases, dehoaxing amounts to explaining the importance of eliciting natural behaviors and discussing the nature of the research topic being studied.

Several studies have shown that participants who are thoroughly debriefed evaluate the research experience positively. Smith and Richardson showed that, compared to nonde- ceived subjects, those in deception studies actually rated their experiences higher in both enjoy- ment and educational value, apparently because the debriefing was more extensive.

One result of an effective debriefing is that skilled researchers can better understand their current study and improve future ones. Participants can be asked for their ideas about revising the procedure in order to learn more about the problem being studied.

In many cases, their descriptions of what they were thinking about during the experiment can be helpful in interpreting the data and plan- ning the next study. The importance of leaving people with a good feeling about their research participation cannot be overstated. Yet it can be a difficult business, especially when deception is involved. Consider the Milgram experiment again: What must that debriefing have been like?

In fairness to Milgram, he was apparently sensitive to the emotional health of his subjects. Other research shows objections by subjects to participating in psychological research seem to center more on their concern about being bored than being harmed Coulter, Having been misled and perhaps embarrassed in the study, deceived participants might respond positively to surveys as part of the process of convincing themselves the study was worth their time and effort Baumrind, —another example of an effort justification see Chapter 1.

They found students believed that participants would be embarrassed or made uncomfortable in the studies and that debriefing, while essential, would not completely alleviate the negative feel- ings. One last aspect of treating participants well concerns privacy and confidentiality, which is encapsulated by APA General Principle E. Research participants should be confident their identi- ties will not be known by anyone other than the experimenter and that only group or disguised coded data will be reported.

The only exceptions to this occur in cases when researchers might be compelled by law to report certain things disclosed by participants e. In research that could involve such disclosure, researchers should word the consent form to make it clear that confidentiality could be limited Folkman, The basic right to privacy also applies to research outside of the laboratory that might affect people in daily living situations.

First, some websites are designed to collect data from those logging into the sites. This happens most frequently in the form of online surveys and questionnaires but can involve other forms of data collection as well.

In other cases, subjects login to sites controlled by researchers on their own campus, and complete a study electronically e.

The second form of online research involves a researcher studying the behavior of Internet users. For both types of research, the basic principles of the ethics code apply, but research involving the Internet introduces unique ethical problems for the researcher. For online research in which computer users contribute data, problems relating to informed consent and debriefing exist.

During a normal informed consent procedure, the experimenter can quickly clear up any confusion or misunderstanding on the part of participants and can be reason- ably sure participants read the consent form before signing. Consent forms can be used easily enough in online studies, but there is no opportunity for researchers to answer questions although some consent forms are accompanied by a set of frequently asked questions and their answers and no way to know if the consent form has been read.

Another consent problem concerns age: Researchers can post warnings that participants need parental consent if they are under age 18, but it is impossible to monitor compliance. Debriefing may also be problematic. A good debrief- ing session is interactive, with questions asked and answered, but with online research, there is no guarantee participants will even be there to read the debriefing information.

One click and the participant is gone without being debriefed. Furthermore, if deception is involved, while the dehoaxing part of debriefing can be managed by presenting clear information, the desensitizing part will be difficult if not impossible to accomplish.

Online research involving the collection of information from computer users involves an addi- tional set of problems. A major issue concerns privacy and confidentiality Kraut et al. As you recall from the discussion of informed consent earlier in this chapter, consent is not required for studies that are purely observational and individual behavior is observed in public places.

Twitter feeds, Facebook posts, chat rooms, blogs, discussion boards, and listservs are public forums or private discussions. For the researcher, the best guideline is be faithful to the general principles of the code and to consult frequently with colleagues and the local IRB during the planning stages of online research.

The best advice for users is to think of the messages they post as having about the same level of privacy as postcards. You wish to do a study comparing two memory improvement techniques. Which cate- gory of the IRB approval process will apply in this case? How does the APA define informed consent?

What was the most obvious problem? Ethical Guidelines for Research with Animals As you recall from your course in introductory psychology, psychologists occasionally use ani- mals as research subjects. Also, the vast majority of studies use rats and mice as subjects; dogs, cats, and nonhuman primates are used in just a tiny proportion of animal research.

Animals are used in psychological research for several reasons. Methodologically, their envi- ronmental, genetic, and developmental histories can be easily controlled. Ethically, most experimental psychologists take the position that, with certain safeguards in place, animals can be subjected to procedures that could not be used with humans.

This shows that they were able to perceive depth and apparently were aware of some of its consequences. Does this mean depth perception is innate? No, because these infants had 6 to 14 months of learning experience with distance perception. To control for this experience, it would have been necessary to raise infants in complete visual isolation, a procedure that was obviously out of the question—although, as you recall from Box 2.

Such an isolation proce- dure is feasible with animals, however, in part because the isolation does not have to be long— animals develop the ability to move through their environments very quickly, sometimes in a matter of minutes. So Gibson and Walk tested a variety of species from rats to kittens to lambs, isolating them from birth i.

They discovered that depth perception, at least as measured in the cliff apparatus, is built into the visual system, at least for those species that rely heavily on vision. Animal Rights The use of animals in research is an emotional and controversial issue not a new one, though—see Box 2.

Animal rights activists have denounced the use of animals in studies ranging from medi- cal research to cosmetics testing. For example, content analysis could be used to study sex-role stereotyping. Singapore Management University. Psychologists test research questions using a variety of methods.

Most research relies on … Types of Research Design Study. The following video, Classifying Quantitative Research Designs: Descriptive non-experimental, Quasi-experimental or Experimental, is a great place to begin exploring quasi-experimental research.

Comparing and contrasting several types of quantitative research designs helps to define quasi-experimental research and describe its appropriate uses and applications. In general, experimental research is high in internal validity, correlational research is low in internal validity, and quasi-experimental research is in between. Exercises Discussion: For each of the following studies, decide which type of research design it is and explain why.

Descriptive research designs help provide answers to the questions of who, what, when, where, and how associated with a particular research problem; a descriptive study cannot conclusively ascertain answers to why. I begin by outlining the constructionist view and differentiating this from the positivist stance. I do this for two reasons; first, to demonstrate the dominance of the positivist perspective in psychology students education and second, because I personally subscribe to a constructionist worldview and this influenced my choice of research topic With the increased popularity of qualitative research, researchers in counseling psychology are expanding their methodologies to include mixed methods designs.

McClelland University of Colorado at Boulder Psychologists often do not consider the optimality of their research designs. How-ever, increasing costs of using inefficient designs requires psychologists to adopt more efficient designs and to use more powerful analysis strategies. Common designs with many factor levels and equal allocations of For more information on how the original standards were created, read Reporting Standards for Research in Psychology PDF, KB.

The text's logical, step-by-step coverage is the result of decades of author experience. An appealing, understandable, and valuable text, Research in Psychology: Methods and Design, 7th edition continues to offer its readers a clear, concise look at psychological science, experimental methods, and correlational research. Rounded out with helpful learning aids, step-by-step instructions, and detailed examples of real research studies makes the material easy to read and student-friendly.

Research examples range from contemporary research to classic studies in order to illustrate various methodological points and enhance critical thinking.