Research Methods in Psychology

Psychologists use different methods for research. Each method has advantages and disadvantages, which is suitable for certain situations but not suitable for other situations.

Case studies, surveys, nature observations, and laboratory observations are examples of descriptive or related research methods. Using these methods, researchers can describe various events, experiences and behaviors and find connections between them. However, these methods do not allow researchers to determine the cause of behavior.

Remember: correlation and causal relationship are different. Two factors may be related, none of which is another cause. Usually, the third factor explains the relevance.

Example: A psychologist uses a survey method to investigate the relationship between baldness and marriage time. He discovered that the length of marriage is related to baldness. However, he could not infer from the fact that baldness caused people to marry for a long time. On the contrary, the third factor explains the correlation. Baldness and long marriage are related to old age.

The correlation coefficient measures the strength of the relationship between two variables. The correlation coefficient is always a number between -1 and +1. The sign (+ or -) of the correlation coefficient indicates the nature of the relationship between the variables

Phenomenology in qualitative research method of psychology? Qualitative research methods form strongly unified families. There are many things in common with these methods, and they branch with key points while being interconnected. Phenomenology is much longer than any other tradition and reflects the research process of human science based on complex philosophical and methodological considerations. The result is the explanation and clarity of the basic procedure that has been mostly used and continues to be used in good humanities science even if they are not explicitly expressed by practitioners. It is important to emphasize that these core procedures are clear and formal, not invented by Husserl. These procedures are reflected only after they have been successfully performed and can be systematically converted to skeletal scientific methods.

The scientific method adopted by behaviorists is one of its greatest strengths, making great contributions to modern psychology, making psychology objective and verifiable. These scientific methods can be seen in the work of E. Tolman (1948). In a particular study with two groups of rats, one group was randomly placed in the maze and the food was placed in the same place. The second group places food in various positions. It always needs the same order from the starting position. This is an objective and scientific experiment using an independent group design where the independent variable is the position of the food for the rat and the dependent variable is the ability or rate of the rat to find the food. There are clear instructions to make the experiment reproducible, so you can verify.

A wide range of research methods are used in psychology. These methods depend on the source of information, the sampling method of information, and the type of tool used in data collection. The method also depends on collecting qualitative data, quantitative data, or both. Qualitative psychology research is where statistical results or other quantitative procedures do not produce research results. Quantitative psychology research is the result of research results from mathematical modeling and statistical estimation or statistical reasoning. Since qualitative information can be processed statistically, the difference is related to the method, not the subject of the research.