1. Hypothesis Development: Where Research Questions Come From
Chapter 2
Hypothesis Development:
Where Research Questions Come From
Dawn M. McBride
The Process of Research in Psychology
Second Edition

2. Steps in the Research Process
Step 1: Choosing a research question
Step 2: Conducting a literature review
Steps in the Research Process
Step 3: Making a hypothesis
Step 4: Designing the study
Step 5: Conducting the study
Step 6: Analyzing the data
Step 7: Reporting the results
Dawn M. McBride - The Process of Research in Psychology, 2nd Edition © 2013 SAGE Publications, Inc.

3. Hypothesis Development
Choosing a Research Area
Conducting a Literature Review
Identify a Research Question
Making Hypotheses
Dawn M. McBride - The Process of Research in Psychology, 2nd Edition © 2013 SAGE Publications, Inc.

4. Choosing a Research Question (Step 1)
Dawn M. McBride - The Process of Research in Psychology, 2nd Edition © 2013 SAGE Publications, Inc.

5. Choosing a Research Question (Step 1)
Primary motivation for designing and conducting a study: Answer a question
Questions come from many sources. Primarily what the researcher is interested in learning about.
Dawn M. McBride - The Process of Research in Psychology, 2nd Edition © 2013 SAGE Publications, Inc.

6. Choosing a Research Question (Step 1)
Research questions should be:
important to gaining new knowledge in the field
answerable with the scientific method
Dawn M. McBride - The Process of Research in Psychology, 2nd Edition © 2013 SAGE Publications, Inc.

7. Types of Research Questions: (Step 1)
Descriptive
To what extent a behavior occurs
What are the levels of anxiety among college students?
Students’ needs for career counseling
What the nature of the behavior is
How does anxiety manifest itself in college students?
Students’ attitudes toward help-seeking
Whether behaviors occur together
Do college students who smoke also tend to be anxious?

8. Types of Research Questions: (Step 1)
Causal
Manipulate a variable to show a cause-effect
Types of events cause college students to be anxious (give a speech vs. take an exam)
Students infected with the cold virus get flu symptoms
Patients treated with CBT show less depression than patients in the wait list
Dawn M. McBride - The Process of Research in Psychology, 2nd Edition © 2013 SAGE Publications, Inc.

9. Choosing a Research Question (Step 1)
Where questions come from:
Researcher’s interests
Testing a theory (explanation of behavior)
Previous empirical findings: Literature review on a topic
Dawn M. McBride - The Process of Research in Psychology, 2nd Edition © 2013 SAGE Publications, Inc.

10. Conducting a Literature Review (Step 2)
Dawn M. McBride - The Process of Research in Psychology, 2nd Edition © 2013 SAGE Publications, Inc.

11. Literature Review (Step 2)
Search databases to find original reports of studies in area of interest to learn:
what is already known
methods that have been used previously and
information to justify hypotheses
A literature review
research question will add to the knowledge base
without duplicating what is already known.
Dawn M. McBride - The Process of Research in Psychology, 2nd Edition © 2013 SAGE Publications, Inc.

12. How to Conduct a Lit. Review (Step 2)
Search databases to
Identify relevant studies to a research question.
Locate reviews of research in an area
Look at references of articles found
Dawn M. McBride - The Process of Research in Psychology, 2nd Edition © 2013 SAGE Publications, Inc.

13. Conducting a Literature Review (Step 2)
PsycINFO and PsycArticles:
is a searchable database that contains records of articles, books, and book chapters written by researchers about research studies in an area of psychology.
All versions of PsycINFO can be searched by
topic words
words that appear in the citation
author names
journal in which the article was published.
Dawn M. McBride - The Process of Research in Psychology, 2nd Edition © 2013 SAGE Publications, Inc.

14. Conducting a Literature Review (Step 2)
PubMed and ERIC:
Journals that publish research in biological and medical areas can be found by searching the PubMed database.
Articles in areas related to education can be found in the ERIC (Education Resources Information Center) database.
Dawn M. McBride - The Process of Research in Psychology, 2nd Edition © 2013 SAGE Publications, Inc.

15. Conducting a Literature Review (Step 2)
Other Sources
Search engines that can find articles relevant to your topic that have not been peer reviewed by other researchers
Google Scholar will search the Web for academic journals and books to find articles relevant to a topic or written by a specific author.
Dawn M. McBride - The Process of Research in Psychology, 2nd Edition © 2013 SAGE Publications, Inc.

16. Types of Research Articles (Step 2)
Journal Articles - written to describe research to other researchers (peer review)
Empirical
Data based, report one or more studies
Review
organize and summarize many studies
Theoretical
Discuss theories in an area of interest
Dawn M. McBride - The Process of Research in Psychology, 2nd Edition © 2013 SAGE Publications, Inc.

17. Conducting a Literature Review (Step 2)
Structure of an empirical journal article:
Abstract – PsycINFO
Introduction
Method - Participants, Materials/Apparatus, Design, Procedure
Results
Discussion
References
Dawn M. McBride - The Process of Research in Psychology, 2nd Edition © 2013 SAGE Publications, Inc.

18. Making Hypotheses (Step 3)
Dawn M. McBride - The Process of Research in Psychology, 2nd Edition © 2013 SAGE Publications, Inc.

19. Making Hypotheses (Step 3)
The primary goals of a literature review are to
determine what is known and not known in a specific area
gather information to develop a hypothesis
A hypothesis
is a predicted answer to the research question
is based on theories and/or research findings
Dawn M. McBride - The Process of Research in Psychology, 2nd Edition © 2013 SAGE Publications, Inc.

20. Making Hypotheses (Step 3)
Theory-Driven (deductive reasoning)
Object relations theory predicts that children who grow up feeling high levels of secure attachment to parental figures develop a more positive sense of self (self-esteem) than children who grow up feeling low levels of secure attachment. And
Ideas about the self developed in childhood shape the personality into adulthood.

21. Making Hypotheses (Step 3)
Theory-Driven (deductive reasoning)
Based in objects relation theory
In a study with college students, your research question and hypotheses in the area of parental attachment and self-esteem could be:

22. Making Hypotheses (Step 3)
Theory-Driven (deductive reasoning)
Research Question
What is the nature of the relation of secure parental attachment to self esteem
Hypothesis
College students who report higher levels of secure parental attachment will report higher levels of self esteem than peers who report low levels of secure parental attachment

23. Making Hypotheses (Step 3)
Data-Driven (inductive reasoning)
A researcher interested in depression among Latino/as found that previous empirical research has shown that
Self-esteem (SE) is related to depression (-)
and that
Self Esteem (EI) is related to ethnic identity (+)
Potential inductive research question

24. Making Hypotheses (Step 3)
Data-Driven (inductive reasoning)
Research question
What is the nature of the relation of ethnic identity to depression?
If Self-esteem (SE) is related to depression (-)
and
Self-esteem (EI) is related to ethnic identity (+)
Hypothesis
Therefore, EI will be (-) related to Depression

25. Research Questions Hypotheses
Theory Driven
Data-Driven
Descriptive
Causal
Dawn M. McBride - The Process of Research in Psychology, 2nd Edition © 2013 SAGE Publications, Inc.

26. Problem: Using inappropriate search engines—
Common Pitfalls
Problem: Using inappropriate search engines—
students often use unreliable and incomplete search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Wikipedia
Problem: Use of inappropriate sources
not peer reviewed or are not the most relevant sources for the research question of interest.
Problem: Hypotheses stated too
without addressing specific aspects of the study.
Dawn M. McBride - The Process of Research in Psychology, 2nd Edition © 2013 SAGE Publications, Inc.

27. Common Pitfalls
Problem: Focus on full text articles —oftentimes students will focus a literature review too heavily on articles with full text access online, missing important studies for their topic.
Problem: Only reading the Abstract —because the Abstract contains a summary of the article, students sometimes believe that they can fully understand the article by just reading the Abstract.
Dawn M. McBride - The Process of Research in Psychology, 2nd Edition © 2013 SAGE Publications, Inc.