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Research Methods in Psychology: Key Takeaways and Exercises

Research Methods in Psychology
Key Takeaways and Exercises

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Notes

table of contents
  1. Acknowledgements
  2. About this Book
  3. About the Authors of the Current Edition
  4. Preface
  5. The Science of Psychology
    1. Methods of Knowing
    2. Understanding Science
    3. Goals of Science
    4. Science and Common Sense
    5. Experimental and Clinical Psychologists
    6. Key Takeaways and Exercises
  6. Overview of the Scientific Method
    1. A Model of Scientific Research in Psychology
    2. Finding a Research Topic
    3. Generating Good Research Questions
    4. Developing a Hypothesis
    5. Designing a Research Study
    6. Analyzing the Data
    7. Drawing Conclusions and Reporting the Results
    8. Key Takeaways and Exercise
  7. Research Ethics
    1. Moral Foundations of Ethical Research
    2. From Moral Principles to Ethics Codes
    3. Putting Ethics Into Practice
    4. Key Takeaways and Exercises
  8. Psychological Measurement
    1. Understanding Psychological Measurement
    2. Reliability and Validity of Measurement
    3. Practical Strategies for Psychological Measurement
    4. Key Takeaways and Exercises
  9. Experimental Research
    1. Experiment Basics
    2. Experimental Design
    3. Experimentation and Validity
    4. Practical Considerations
    5. Key Takeaways and Exercises
  10. Non-Experimental Research
    1. Overview of Non-Experimental Research
    2. Correlational Research
    3. Complex Correlation
    4. Qualitative Research
    5. Observational Research
    6. Key Takeaways and Exercises
  11. Survey Research
    1. Overview of Survey Research
    2. Constructing Surveys
    3. Conducting Surveys
    4. Key Takeaways and Exercises
  12. Quasi-Experimental Research
    1. One-Group Designs
    2. Non-Equivalent Groups Designs
    3. Key Takeaways and Exercises
  13. Factorial Designs
    1. Setting Up a Factorial Experiment
    2. Interpreting the Results of a Factorial Experiment
    3. Key Takeaways and Exercises
  14. Single-Subject Research
    1. Overview of Single-Subject Research
    2. Single-Subject Research Designs
    3. The Single-Subject Versus Group “Debate”
    4. Key Takeaways and Exercises
  15. Presenting Your Research
    1. American Psychological Association (APA) Style
    2. Writing a Research Report in American Psychological Association (APA) Style
    3. Other Presentation Formats
    4. Key Takeaways and Exercises
  16. Descriptive Statistics
    1. Describing Single Variables
    2. Describing Statistical Relationships
    3. Expressing Your Results
    4. Conducting Your Analyses
    5. Key Takeaways and Exercises
  17. Inferential Statistics
    1. Understanding Null Hypothesis Testing
    2. Some Basic Null Hypothesis Tests
    3. Additional Considerations
    4. From the “Replicability Crisis” to Open Science Practices
    5. Key Takeaways and Exercises
  18. Glossary
  19. References

18

Key Takeaways and Exercises

Key Takeaways

  • A wide variety of ethical issues arise in psychological research. Thinking them through requires considering how each of four moral principles (weighing risks against benefits, acting responsibly and with integrity, seeking justice, and respecting people’s rights and dignity) applies to each of three groups of people (research participants, science, and society).
  • Ethical conflict in psychological research is unavoidable. Researchers must think through the ethical issues raised by their research, minimize the risks, weigh the risks against the benefits, be able to explain their ethical decisions, seek feedback about these decisions from others, and ultimately take responsibility for them.
  • There are several written ethics codes for research with human participants that provide specific guidance on the ethical issues that arise most frequently. These codes include the Nuremberg Code, the Declaration of Helsinki, the Belmont Report, and the Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects.
  • The APA Ethics Code is the most important ethics code for researchers in psychology. It includes many standards that are relevant mainly to clinical practice, but Standard 8 concerns informed consent, deception, debriefing, the use of nonhuman animal subjects, and scholarly integrity in research.
  • Research conducted at universities, hospitals, and other institutions that receive support from the federal government must be reviewed by an institutional review board (IRB)—a committee at the institution that reviews research protocols to make sure they conform to ethical standards.
  • Informed consent is the process of obtaining and documenting people’s agreement to participate in a study, having informed them of everything that might reasonably be expected to affect their decision. Although it often involves having them read and sign a consent form, it is not equivalent to reading and signing a consent form.
  • Although some researchers argue that deception of research participants is never ethically justified, the APA Ethics Code allows for its use when the benefits of using it outweigh the risks, participants cannot reasonably be expected to be harmed, there is no way to conduct the study without deception, and participants are informed of the deception as soon as possible.
  • It is your responsibility as a researcher to know and accept your ethical responsibilities.
  • You can take several concrete steps to minimize risks and deception in your research. These include making changes to your research design, prescreening to identify and eliminate high-risk participants, and providing participants with as much information as possible during informed consent and debriefing.
  • Your ethical responsibilities continue beyond IRB approval. You need to monitor participants’ reactions, be alert for potential violations of confidentiality, and maintain scholarly integrity through the publication process.

Exercises

  • Practice: Imagine a study testing the effectiveness of a new drug for treating obsessive-compulsive disorder. Give a hypothetical example of an ethical issue from each cell of Table 3.1 “A Framework for Thinking About Ethical Issues in Scientific Research” that could arise in this research.
  • Discussion: It has been argued that researchers are not ethically responsible for the misinterpretation or misuse of their research by others. Do you agree? Why or why not?
  • Practice: Read the Nuremberg Code, the Belmont Report, and Standard 8 of the APA Ethics Code. List five specific similarities and five specific differences among them.
  • Discussion: In a study on the effects of disgust on moral judgment, participants were asked to judge the morality of disgusting acts, including people eating a dead pet and passionate kissing between a brother and sister (Haidt, Koller, & Dias, 1993).[1] If you were on the IRB that reviewed this protocol, what concerns would you have with it? Refer to the appropriate sections of the APA Ethics Code.
  • Discussion: How could you conduct a study on the extent to which people obey authority in a way that minimizes risks and deception as much as possible? (Note: Such a study would not have to look at all like Milgram’s.)
  • Practice: Find a study in a professional journal and create a consent form for that study. Be sure to include all the information in Standard 8.02.
  1. Haidt, J., Koller, S. and Dias, M. (1993) Affect, culture, and morality, or is it wrong to eat your dog? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 613-628. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.65.4.613 ↵

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Copyright © 2019

                                by Rajiv S. Jhangiani, I-Chant A. Chiang, Carrie Cuttler, & Dana C. Leighton

            Research Methods in Psychology by Rajiv S. Jhangiani, I-Chant A. Chiang, Carrie Cuttler, & Dana C. Leighton is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
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