Planning your research Theories hypotheses and potential pitfalls

Planning your research: Theories, hypotheses, and potential pitfalls

Types of research studies Exploratory -looking for associations, describe phenomena to formulate theory Exploratory research is research into the unknown. It is used when you are investigating something but really don't understand it all, or are not completely sure what you are looking for Confirmatory -based on a theory, test a specific hypothesis or reproduce findings Confirmatory research is where you have a pretty good idea what's going on. That is, you have a theory (or several theories), and the objective of the research is to find out if theory is supported by the facts Critical an outcome of the study resolves a competition between two or more different theories

Research Questions (RQ) What is RQ? RQ identifies the phenomenon (i. e. the process, object or entity) that the researcher wants to investigate (Willig, 2008). Three main types of RQ: Causal RQ – Compares two or more phenomena and determines if a relationship exists. Often called relationship research questions. Example: Is there a relationship between a person's age and their favourite day of the week? Descriptive RQ – Seek to describe a phenomena and often study “how much”, “how often”, or “what is the change”. Example: How often do college-aged students use Twitter? Comparative RQ – Aim to examine the difference between two or more groups in relation to one or more variables. The questions often begin with “What is the difference in. . . ”. Example: What is the difference in academic achievement of girls and boys?

Hypothesis What is hypothesis? It is a general, but exact statement about reality: formulated in scientific terms (not everyday terms); can be tested either by logical analysis (theoretical hypothesis) or by an empirical procedure (empirical hypothesis) • • What is a good hypothesis? A good hypothesis can be tested

What is the difference between RQ and H?

Hypotheses Questions: 1. Kind people are more successful than evil people. 2. When Freud introduced the concept of 1. Is it a “good” or a “bad” unconsciousness, he deliberately ignored the work hypothesis? of earlier researchers. 3. In most of the cases discrepancy between mutual expectations of spouses is the cause of divorce. 4. People usually overestimate expected satisfaction from revenge. 5. Caucasians are smarter than Chukchi. 6. Loneliness leads to sickness and earlier death. 7. In presence of beautiful women lose their mind. 2. Is it testable, and if yes, how you would test it? 3. If it is not testable, what can be changed to make it testable?

First steps to your own research: group exercise - 15 mins for preparation • In groups of 4 choose any field of social psychology you are interested in • State a research question

Hypotheses: group exercise - 15 mins for preparation. State one «good» and one «bad» hypothesis Don’t tell your peers which H is a good/ bad one Try to uncover which H of your peers is a good one, why?

Research ethics (APA) Why do we need ethics? Violations against authorship / copyright: Plagiarism; Collusion (wrong authorship credit, ghostwriting); Using products of other people’s work without permission. Violations against scientific integrity: Self-plagiarism; Selective publication; Data fabrication. More on ethics: http: //www. apa. org/ethics/code/index. aspx 5 Psychology Experiments You Couldn't Do Today

Fraud in science: NY Times «The Mind of a Con Man» http: //www. nytimes. com/2013/04/28/magazine/diederik-stapelsaudacious-academic-fraud. html? pagewanted=all&_r=2

Next time Getting your data: Sources and samples