PSYC 2600H Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Sampling Error, Point Estimation, Latin Square
16 Jan 2018
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Having a research question implies that you are trying to generate a theory , which is well-established principle or set of general principles to explain a broad range of observations . Scientists are interest in theories that apply very generally-they want their theories to apply to all entities or situations. An entire set of entities is known as a population . Existing theories can be used to generate a hypothesis/prediction , which is a proposed explanation of the specific observation that interests you . A prediction should be a scientific statement: a statement that can be verified (or not) using data, meaning that you can break down the statement down into things that you can measure , known as variables . Scientific statements, are ones that can be verified with reference to evidence. (testable using measured variables or manipulated variables. Non-scientific statements, are ones that cannot be tested empirically. Sample, which is a smaller set of entities from our population.
