PSYC 1010 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Null Hypothesis, Statistical Significance, Frequency Distribution

• School: York University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 1010
• Professor: Jennifer Steeves

Document Summary

Goals: measurement and description, understanding and prediction, application and control. Steps in an investigation: formulate a testable hypothesis, select the method and design the study, collect the date, analyse the data and draw conclusions, report the findings. Advantages: clarity and precision yield better communication. Types of research: self-report, people describe their own behaviour. Interview: people may not give accurate responses, observation, researchers record behaviour. Tests (e. g. reaction time: need to measure the right thing. Variations: can have one group of subjects serve as their own control group, can manipulate more than one independent variable in a study, can use multiple dependant variables in a study. + permits conclusions about cause and effect relationships (if done right) Manipulations and control often make experiments artificial. Practical realities and ethical concerns make it impossible to conduct experiments on many issues. + broadens the scope of phenomena that psychologists can study (can explore issues that could not be examined with experimental methods)