PSYC 2030 Midterm: Research Methods Midterm One Notes

• School: York University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 2030
• Professor: Michael Pettit

Document Summary

In general, psychologists are committed to studying mental life and behaviour by using what is known as the scientific method. It reflects a commitment to test knowledge through observation and experimentation. How does psychological research progress: when we say that the key goal of psychological research is to understand why mental processes and behaviour have particular effects, we are essentially saying that we want to explain those phenomena. Second, it should allow researchers to generate predictions about what will happen in novel situations. A commitment to carrying out research with this objective is referred to as (cid:862)falsificatio(cid:374)is(cid:373)(cid:863: hypothesis formally, a statement about the casual relationship between particular phe(cid:374)o(cid:373)e(cid:374)a (cid:894)i. e. , i(cid:374) the for(cid:373) (cid:862)a causes b(cid:863)(cid:895). This is usually derived fro(cid:373) a particular theory and designed to be tested in research. In statistics and in informal usage, a hypothesis can also be a statement of the expected results of a study.