Evaluating your ideas and Reading the Literature Psych 231: Research Methods in Psychology

Announcements Don’t forget to do your library assignment! It is due in labs next week, but I strongly suggest that you do the assignment as soon as you can while the info is still fresh in your mind. Also for next week’s lab, make sure that you download and read the Raz, Kirsch, Polard, & Nitkin-Kaner, (2006) before coming to lab.

Where do ideas come from? Observation Common Sense Past research – find out what research has already been done and ask yourself “what don’t we know still” Follow-up studies, expanding the past research in more detail or new directions Improvements on past research studies, maybe you think the past research had some serious flaws or limitations

Where do ideas come from? Observation Common Sense Past research Identify a problem – perhaps there is an important problem or issue that needs a (or some) solution(s). WWII - why did airplanes keep crashing? Led to development early cognitive theories of attentionLed to development early cognitive theories of attention

Where do ideas come from? Ask the Experts Putting your trust in somebody else who knows the research field and the issues that need answers Observation Common Sense Past research Identify a problem

Classic barriers & mistakes “I’m not smart enough.” “Somebody else must have already done this.” “I don’t know how to pursue the idea.” “It’s too simple, something must be wrong.” “The idea will take too much work.” Do consider the practicality of the work load, but don’t be afraid of hard work. You Great ideas

Classic barriers & mistakes cont. “I’m not interested in the topic.” Don’t procrastinate and take your time Glued to your first idea. Be flexible, adjust your idea as you learn more “I can’t find any literature to review.” You Great ideas Our goal is that you come away from this course with the knowledge and ability to see past these pitfalls.

Are my ideas good? Evaluating your research ideas

Are my ideas good? Focus: Is your idea specified enough to be manageable ROT rule: Replicable - one time deal? Observable - can you measure it? Testable - can you test it & can you falsify it? Evaluating your research ideas

Replication Many interesting results are not accepted until they are replicated Cold fusion - a potential answer to our energy needs Cold fusion The results were never replicated and are not generally accepted by the scientific community Extrasensory perception (ESP) Some proponents claim that ESP only occurs under certain unknown conditions and that it is impossible to predict when the conditions are right.

Observable Many interesting questions may not be examined experimentally because they aren’t observable (either directly or indirectly). Do dogs think like humans? Since we can’t directly observe a dog’s thoughts, we can only make inferences about their thoughts via their behavior Is my experience of the color blue the same as yours?

Testable Other hypotheses may not have objective testability (e.g., imaginary events) What if the dinosaurs hadn’t become extinct? Many interesting hypotheses are not testable until they are further specified Meditation affects how good one feels about oneself. Which direction? What counts as meditation? How much meditation? What does ‘feel good about oneself” mean?

Example: A research idea Getting the idea How do people remember things? This is a pretty big question To begin to answer it we’ve got to FOCUS Break the general idea down into smaller more specific ideas Develop theories as to how & why Then we can begin using experiments to test parts of the theories

Example: A research idea Focusing the idea What does memory involve? Encoding - getting the memories in Storage - keeping the memories Retrieval - getting the memories out Are all kinds of memory the same? Procedural vs. declarative memories Pictures vs. words How long do memories last?

Example: A research idea Evaluating the idea (ROT) Can we re-do the experiments, do we get similar results? How do we observe memory? Recall tests, recognition tests, “brain waves,”,,, Are our predictions testable? Reading the literature will help greatly with evaluating research ideas

Reading a research article How is it different from reading a novel? Style Objectives Structure

Reading a research article What's the goal of a research article?  The reader to:  Know about the research  Understand what was done  Be convinced by the research (hopefully)  Standardization of research report format  APA style  Organization and content reflects the logical thinking in scientific investigation  Standardization helps with clarity  Read with a critical eye

The anatomy of a research article The basic parts of a research article

The anatomy of a research article The basic parts of a research article:  Title and authors - gives you a general idea of the topic and specifically who did it  Abstract - short summary of the article  States the issue, the methods, major variables of interst, the findings, and the conclusions  (in 120 words or less)  First contact  Shows up in PsycInfo  Gets skimmed before reading the article

The anatomy of a research article  Introduction - gives you the background that you need  What are the issues  What is/are the theory(ies)  What does the past research say  What the rationale for doing this research  What are the specific hypotheses  Reading checklist 1) What is the author's goal? 2) What are the hypotheses? 3) If you had designed the experiment, how would YOU have done it? The basic parts of a research article :

The anatomy of a research article  Method - tells the reader exactly what was done  Enough detail that the reader could actually replicate the study.  Subsections:  Participants - who were the data collected from  Apparatus/ Materials - what was used to conduct the study  Procedure - how the study was conducted, what the participants did  Reading checklist 1 a) Is your method better than theirs? b) Does the authors method actually test the hypotheses? c) What are the independent, dependent, and control variables? 2) Based on what the authors did, what results do YOU expect? The basic parts of a research article :

The anatomy of a research article  Results - gives a summary of the results and the statistical tests  Reading checklist 1) Did the author get unexpected results? 2 a) How does the author interpret the results? b) How would YOU interpret the results? c) What implications would YOU draw from these results? The basic parts of a research article :

The anatomy of a research article  Discussion - the interpretation and implications of the results  Reading checklist 1 a) Does YOUR interpretation or the authors' interpretation best represent the data? b) Do you or the author draw the most sensible implications and conclusions?  References - full citations of all work cited  Appendices - additional supplementary supporting material The basic parts of a research article :

Next Week Using the library to review the literature Reminders: Download Raz, Kirsch, Polard, & Nitkin-Kaner, (2006) (full text available at library) and read the article for lab next week. Quiz 2 is due next Wednesday before class