PSYC 110 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Scientific Method
7 Sep 2016
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Intuition vs the scientific method: theory -> predictions -> expirement -> observation -> theory -> etc. Experimental: this is the most direct and conclusive research method, the independent variable (iv) gets manipulated -, the dependent variable (dv) gets affected -, this reaction produces a result. Example: an experiment testing how sleep affects cognitive ability. Iv = amount of sleep each test group gets. Dv = scores on a math test taken by each group after differing amounts of sleep: there are 2 main forms of experimental design: The same subject is given multiple manipulations over time. Usually multiple test subjects are used to ensure results can be reproduced, although just one test subject can be used. Correlational: this design is much less conclusive than the experimental design, but can still be useful, there are no manipulations of variables, only observations of pre-existing variables, correlation does not equal causation, 3 types of correlations: Negative correlation: when mapping 2 separate patterns:
