psychology
the scientific study of behavior and mental processes
random selection
This is the action that creates a random sample
If you are choosing sample using THIS from a high school, you
might list all of the students in alphabetical order by their last
name and choose every fifth student to be in your sample
USED FOR A SURVEY
theory
Explains behaviors or events by offering ideas that organize what we
have observed.
Predicts behaviors or events
Aims to explain some phenomenon and allows researchers to
generate testable hypothesis with the hope of collecting data that
support it
hypothesis
A testable prediction, often implied by a theory
A statement that expresses a relationship between two variables
operational definitions
a carefully worded statement of the exact variables used in a
research study
Example: Research on being "sleep deprived" is too
general, therefore this might be defined at "4 hours of sleep or less"
replicate
Repeat the research
Usually using different participants in different situations
case study
Examines one individual or small group in depth
A type of descriptive research
Much of the what we know of the brain came from case studies of individuals with brain damage
Jean Piaget researched child development with case studies by studying his own children
Since it only studies one person, findings of this research cannot be applied to the population without further research
naturalistic observation
observing and recording behavior in naturally occurring situations without trying to manipulate and control the situation
Research method that involves watching participants in their habitats without interacting with them.
The goal is to get a realistic and rich picture of the participants' behavior
Cannot establish cause and effect relationships between variables.
A type of descriptive research
Like Jane Goodall studying chimpanzees
survey
a technique for ascertaining the self-reported attitudes or behaviors of a particular group (population) usually by questioning a representative, random sample of the group
Involves asking people to fill out questionnaires
Often used to gather opinions or attitudes and for correlational research from many people
A type of descriptive research
Questions should be careful of the framing effect
framing effect
How a survey question is worded can effect the responses
Example 1: people are more approving of "aid to the
needy" than of "welfare" even though these are the same
idea but with different wording
Example 2: The same idea asked in different ways will make
people answer differently:
Do you believe in life on other
planets?
VS
Do you believe in aliens?
population
THIS is the overall group that is being studied, from which the
sample is selected from.
THIS is anyone or anything that could possible be selected to be
in the sample.
Example: choosing a small group of students from the total
students. The total is students represents THIS TERM
random sample
a small group from the population that fairly represents the
population because each member has an equal chance of inclusion on the SURVEY
Example: Choosing a small group of students from the population,
you might number the names of every student and use a random number
generator to pick the survey participants
USED FOR A SURVEY
stratified sampling
process that allows a researcher to ensure that the sample represents
the population on some criteria
Example: If the population being researched is 18% Asian and 15%
Black, researchers doing this type of sample for a 100 person survey
would make sure to get responses from exactly 18 Asians and 15 Blacks,
so as to best represent the population.
USED FOR A SURVEY
sample vs. population
If you are studying how high school students at a particular school feel about online privacy, you might choose a smaller random SAMPLE of 100 high school students from the overall larger POPULATION of all high school students at that particular school.