PSYC 100 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Materiel, Edward B. Titchener, Informed Consent

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

Document Summary

After working through this lesson"s material, you should be able to: Describe why psychologists employ the scientific method? o o. Explain the importance of verifiability, reliability and objectivity. Explain the five principal steps of the scientific method. Identify characteristics that are important in a research study and explain why: describe the importance of operational definitions, distinguish between independent and dependent variables. o o. Explain the difference between an experiment and a correlational study. Identify the utility, advantages, and disadvantages of correlational studies. Describe the principles (validity, reliability, generalizability) of good experimental design: describe the proper procedures for the selection of participants for an experiment and their assignment to conditions. o. Describe the role of statistics in interpreting research findings: how do statistics help us determine whether a result is due to chance, differentiate between descriptive and inferential statistics o. Scientific method : structured process to seek explanations for observed phenomena, make testable predictions, and then test them.