November 15, 2023
🤯Last day revision ℹ️Ⓜ️🅿️Questions ⌛2 hours, 50 marks
✔️ Instructions**:** Attempt any five questions in about 300 words each. Answer at least two questions from each section.
❓ Discuss the steps involved in psychological research. Explain the ethical issues related to psychological research.
🅰️ 1️⃣ Define the specific question or problem you want to investigate. 2️⃣ Develop a research design, including choosing the method (e.g., experimental, observational), participants, and variables. 3️⃣ Implement the study by gathering information from participants using appropriate tools and techniques. 4️⃣ Use statistical methods to analyze and interpret the collected data, drawing conclusions about the research question. 5️⃣ Summarize findings, discuss implications, and communicate results through research papers or presentations.
Ethical issues in psychological research involve ensuring the well-being and rights of participants. Key concerns include obtaining informed consent, protecting confidentiality, and avoiding deception or coercion. Researchers must also address potential harm and debrief participants after the study. Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) play a crucial role in reviewing and approving research proposals to ensure adherence to ethical guidelines.
❓ Describe the characteristics, strengths and limitations of qualitative research design.
🅰️ Qualitative research design focuses on exploring the depth and complexity of human experiences, often employing methods like interviews, observations, and content analysis. Its strengths lie in providing rich, detailed insights into subjective phenomena, promoting a holistic understanding. This approach is particularly useful for generating hypotheses, exploring new topics, and capturing diverse perspectives. However, qualitative research is often criticized for its subjective nature, making generalizability challenging. Additionally, the interpretation of data can be influenced by researcher bias, and the process can be time-consuming. Despite limitations, qualitative research plays a crucial role in complementing quantitative methods and offering a nuanced understanding of human behavior.
❓ Elaborate upon the types of hypotheses and steps of hypothesis testing.
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Hypotheses in psychological research can be directional, predicting a specific outcome (e.g., "Participants who receive X treatment will show a decrease in anxiety"), or non-directional, suggesting a relationship without specifying the direction (e.g., "There is a difference in anxiety levels between groups A and B").
In hypothesis testing, the process involves setting up a null hypothesis (H0) and an alternative hypothesis (H1), collecting data, and conducting statistical analysis to determine if the results are statistically significant. Steps include choosing a significance level (alpha), selecting an appropriate statistical test, calculating the test statistic, and comparing it to a critical value or p-value. Researchers then decide whether to reject the null hypothesis based on the obtained results.
❓ Different types of variables.
🅰️ In psychological research, variables are categorized as independent, dependent, and control variables. The independent variable is manipulated to observe its effect on the dependent variable, which is the outcome measured. Control variables are factors held constant to minimize their potential impact on the relationship between the independent and dependent variables. Additionally, variables can be classified as categorical (e.g., gender) or continuous (e.g., age), based on the type of data they represent. Understanding and appropriately defining these variables are crucial for designing and interpreting research studies.
❓ Types of Experimental Research Design.