PSYC 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Scientific Method

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 100
• Professor: Jill L Atkinson

Document Summary

Theory - an idea, or a conceptual model, that is designed to explain existing facts and make predictions about new facts that might be discovered. Example - darwin"s theory of evolution explains biological diversity, the fit between species and their environment, and how a species" appearance and behaviour may change over generations. Hypothesis- a hypothesis is a testable prediction about processes that can be observed and measured. Ex- an educated guess based on the explanations and assumptions that comprise a theory. This is your hypothesis (a good hypothesis should be able to be disproved: the earth is a very large object and your pen is a very small object. The pen should move towards earth, and not vice versa. Using the scientific method: the scientific method (empiricism) depends mainly upon objectivity and verifiability, but also the consistency of the data received. Empiricism- a characteristic of a measure that provides consistent and stable answers across multiple observations and points in time.