PSY 079 (Introduction to Psychology)

STUDENT ACTIVITY SHEET BS PSYCHOLOGY / SECOND YEAR

Session # 2

LESSON TITLE: CONDUCTING RESEARCH IN Materials:

PSYCHOLOGY
Textbook, pen and notebook, index card/class list
LEARNING OUTCOMES:
Upon successful completion of this lesson, the psychology
student can:

1. Describe the nature of psychology as a science;

2. Discuss the different research designs being used in
psychological research;
3. Identify the commonly used measures of psychological
Reference:
research;
4. Learn the basic concepts of statistics in psychological Feist, G. J., & Rosenberg, E. L. (2019).
research; and Psychology: Perspectives and connections.
5. Distinguish ethical methods from non-ethical methods of McGraw Hill Education.
research.

LESSON REVIEW (5 minutes)

As a review of the previous discussion, answer the following questions:

1. How should we scientifically define psychology?

2. What are the different goals of psychology?
3. Give at least three specializations in psychology and describe the area that it focuses on.
4. Name one perspective of psychology that can be a basis for the explanation of human behavior.

MAIN LESSON (60 minutes)

Science is about testing intuitive assumptions regarding how the world works, observing the world, and being open-
minded to unexpected findings. In fact, some of science’s most important discoveries were unexpected such as the
penicillin, and even the classical conditioning in psychology pioneered by Ivan Pavlov. Fundamentally, science entails
collecting observations, or data, from the real world, and evaluating whether the data support our ideas or not.

SCIENCE
When talking of science, people often think only of the physical sciences as “science,” but science comes in at least
three distinct flavors (Feist, 2006b):

§ Physical Sciences – study the world of things like stars, light, waves, atoms, the Earth, compounds, and molecules.
It includes physics, astronomy, chemistry, and geology.

§ Biological Sciences – include the study of plants and animals in the broadest sense. It includes biology, zoology,
genetics, and botany.
§ Social Sciences – study humans, both as individuals and as groups. These include anthropology, sociology,
economics, and of course, psychology.

Scientific Thinking – involves the reasoning skills required to generate, test, and revise theories (Koslowski, 1996; Kuhn,
Amsel, & O’Loughlin, 1988; Zimmerman, 2007). Science is also an attitude that requires us to keep open eyes and
questioning mind.

This document and the information thereon is the property of

PHINMA Education (Department of Psychology) 1 of 7
Scientific Method – the procedures by which scientists conduct research, consisting of five basic processes (O.P.T.I.C.):

§ Observe – researchers develop expectations about an observed phenomenon. They express expectations as a
o Theory: a set of related assumptions from which testable predictions can be made.

§ Prediction – this is when the hypothesis is formulated.

o Hypothesis: is a specific, informed, and testable prediction of what kind of outcome should occur under a
particular condition.

§ Testing – the point where the hypothesis will be tested by selecting one of a number of established research
methods, along with appropriate measurement techniques. The tools or instrument to be used must be both reliable
and valid.
o Reliability: the test or measure gives us a consistent result.
o Validity: the test or instrument measures what it aims to measure.

§ Interpretation – mathematical techniques are employed to determine whether the results are significant and not
just a matter of chance, and whether they closely fit the prediction.

§ Communicate – dissemination of the research findings through publication or other means of sharing the results
to the public.

RESEARCH DESIGNS IN PSYCHOLOGY

Research designs are plans for how to conduct a study. The design chosen for a given study depends on the question
being asked. Some questions can be answered by placing people in different groups in a laboratory to see whether a
treatment causes a change in behavior. Meanwhile, other questions have to be studied by questionnaires or surveys. In
this section, we will examine the variations in research design. But first, let us have a common understanding of few key
terms to all research design in psychology.

o Variable – is anything that changes, or varies, within or between individuals. Some examples are age,
gender, weight, intelligence, level of anxiety, extraversion, etc.
o Population – this is the entire group a researcher is interested in. Some examples are all humans, all
adolescents, all boys, all girls, all college students, among others.
o Samples – these are the representative of the population.

At this point, let us know discuss the different research designs in psychology.

1. Descriptive Designs – the researcher makes no prediction and does not try to control variables. Simply, the researcher
defines a problem of interest and describes as carefully as possible the variables of interest. The basic question here is
mostly, “What” like What is apathy? Descriptive studies usually occur during the exploratory phase of research, in which
the research is looking for meaningful patterns that might lead to predictions later on; they generally do not involve
hypothesis testing. Most common kinds of descriptive methods in psychology are:

1.1. Case Study: it involves the observation of one person, often over a long period of time.

1.2. Naturalistic Observation: a method in which the researcher observes and records behavior in the real world.

1.3. Qualitative Research / Interview: it involves data gathered from open-ended and unstructured answers rather
than quantitative or numeric answers. Qualitative interview on the other hand occur between two people, and usually
eliciting open-ended answers.

1.4. Survey Research: it restricts the possible answers to some kind of numeric rating scale such as 1 for “completely
disagree” or 5 for “completely agree.” Research that collects any kind of numeric and quantifiable scale and often
has limited response options is referred to as quantitative research.

2. Correlational Studies – it measures two or more variables and their relationship to one another and determines how
strong the relationship is. In this design, the basic question is, Is X related to Y? for instance, “Is there a relationship
between parenting style and psychological well-being of adolescents?” Note that it is not designed to measure
causation. This is useful when the experimenter cannot manipulate or control the variable.

This document and the information thereon is the property of

PHINMA Education (Department of Psychology) 2 of 7
3. Experimental Studies – it is a research design that includes independent (the one being manipulated by the
experimenter) and dependent variables (outcome or response to experimental manipulation) and random assignment
of participants to control and experimental groups or conditions.
o Random Assignment: a method used to assign participants to different research conditions to guarantee
that each person has the same chance of being in one group as another.
o Experimental Group: consists of participants who receive the treatment or whatever it is thought to change
behavior.
o Control Group: consists of participants who are treated in exactly the same manner as the experimental
group but with one crucial difference: they do not receive the independent variable or the treatment, in some
cases, they get a placebo – a substance or treatment that appears identical to the actual treatment but
lacks the active substance.

3.1. Quasi-experimental Design: a research method similar to an experimental design except that it makes use of
naturally occurring groups rather than randomly assigning subjects to groups.

4. Longitudinal Studies – it makes observations of the same people over time, ranging from months to decades. These
kinds of studies are not only useful for studying change over time, but also can be used to study how specific causes
affect specific outcomes.

5. Twin-Adoption Studies – research into hereditary influence on twins, both identical and fraternal, who were raised
apart (adopted) and who were raised together.

6. Meta-Analysis – a quantitative method for combining the results of all the published and even unpublished results on
one question and drawing a conclusion based on the entire set of studies on the topic. To do this, a researcher converts
the findings of each study into a standardized statistic known as effect size – a measure of the strength of the
relationship between two variables.

COMMONLY USED MEASURES OF PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH

Measures Description Use Limitations

Self-reports Participants’ written or oral Interviews and Social desirability bias

accounts of thoughts, actions, and questionnaires Lack of clear insight into
feelings one’s own behavior

Behavioral Objective observation of actions in Small-scale studies on Time required to train

measures either natural or laboratory settings behavior coders and conduct coding
Participants may modify
their behavior

Physiological Data collection of bodily responses Studies to determine the Specialized training on
measures under certain conditions magnitude of physiological expensive equipment, on
change how to collect
measurements, and on
data interpretation

Multiple measures Several measures combined to Offset limitation of any Expensive and time
acquire data on one aspect of single measurement consuming
behavior Complex behaviors to study

OVERVIEW OF STATISTICS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH

Statistics – a mathematical procedures for collecting, analyzing, interpreting, and presenting numeric data. Researchers
use statistics to describe and simplify data and to understand how variables relate to one another. Two classes of statistics
are descriptive and inferential.

This document and the information thereon is the property of

PHINMA Education (Department of Psychology) 3 of 7
 § Descriptive Statistics: measures used to describe and summarize research. It includes measures of central
tendency (mean, median, mode), variability and dispersion such as standard deviation.

§ Inferential Statistics: allows us to test hypotheses and draw conclusion as to how likely a sample score is to occur
in a population. They also allow us to determine how likely is it that two or more samples came from the same
population. Putting it another way, inferential statistics use probability and the normal distribution to rule out chance
as an explanation for why group scores are different.

RESEARCH ETHICS

Ethics – are the rules governing the conduct of a person or a group in general or in a specific situation – or more simply,
standards of right and wrong.

Scientific Misconduct – this is intentional and therefore, the most serious ethical violation. It comes in three forms:

§ Plagiarism: when someone presents the words or ideas of other people as their own.
§ Falsification: changing, altering, or deleting scientific data.
§ Fabrication: presenting or publishing scientific results that are made up.

Ethical Treatment of Human Participants

1. Informed consent – tell participants in general terms what the study is about, what they will do and how long it will
take, what the known risks and benefits are and whom to contact with questions.

2. Respect for persons – safeguard the dignity and autonomy of the individual and take extra precautions when
dealing with study participants, such as children who are less likely to understand that their participation is voluntary.

3. Beneficence – inform participants the costs and benefits of participation; minimize costs for participants and
maximize benefits.

4. Privacy and confidentiality – protect the privacy of the participant, generally by keeping all responses confidential.
Confidentiality ensures that participants’ identities are never directly connected with the data they provide in the
study.

5. Justice – benefits and costs must be distributed equally among participants.

CHECK FOR UNDERSTANDING (20 minutes)

You will answer and rationalize this by yourself. This will be recorded as your quiz. One (1) point will be given to correct
answer and another one (1) point for the correct rationalization. Superimpositions or erasures in you answer/rationalization
is not allowed. You are given 20 minutes for this activity.

Multiple Choice

1. The following characterizes science but:

a. it is cumulative.
b. it is a search for truth.
c. it is an attitude.
d. it requires intellectual honesty.
ANSWER: ________
RATIO:___________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________

2. Professor Gonzales wanted to do research on a real-world condition that lead to prosocial behavior in teenagers,
defining prosocial behavior as “the intent to benefit others.” He went to a high school in her community and videotaped
the 15-minute break of the students. Together with his trained coders then coded the behavior of every teenager and
counted the number of times each of them acted in a prosocial behavior. What do you think is the research design
employed by Professor Gonzales in his study?

This document and the information thereon is the property of

PHINMA Education (Department of Psychology) 4 of 7
 a. Experimental
b. Case study
c. Correlational
d. Descriptive
ANSWER: ________
RATIO:___________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________

3. If Professor Gonzales decides to collect information using a questionnaire that has limited response options, such as
an instrument he devised wherein respondents are asked to rate how likely the statements are applicable to them in
the scale of 1 (not applicable to me at all) to 7 (totally applicable to me), what is the research design that he is considering
this time?
a. Qualitative research
b. Survey research
c. Correlational research
d. Case study
ANSWER: ________
RATIO:___________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________

4. In a research title: “Impact of Self-Esteem and Self-Consciousness on Social Media Use,” what does the researcher
intend to investigate?
a. Social media use is caused by self-esteem and self-consciousness.
b. Self-esteem and self-consciousness are caused by social media use.
c. Self-esteem and self-consciousness predict social media use.
d. Social media use predicts self-esteem and self-consciousness.
ANSWER: ________
RATIO:___________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________

5. An experimenter wants to know if good exam scores are caused by number of hours spent reviewing. In relation to this
research topic, which of the following statement is incorrect?
a. The experimenter wants to know if number of hours spent reviewing is caused by good exam scores in the
previous examinations.
b. Good exam scores are the dependent variables.
c. Number of hours reviewing is the independent variable.
d. Random assignment must be implemented.
ANSWER: ________
RATIO:___________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________

6. Which instruments are considered less susceptible to social desirability bias?

a. Self-report measures
b. Behavioral measures
c. Physiological measures
d. Multiple measures
ANSWER: ________
RATIO:___________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________

7. Self-report questionnaires are advantageous in a way that they are easy to administer to large number of participants.
On the contrary, a disadvantage of such questionnaires is that:
a. They have low reliability.
b. Scoring responses is subjective
c. They cost too much.

This document and the information thereon is the property of

PHINMA Education (Department of Psychology) 5 of 7
 d. People do not always accurately report their true thoughts or feelings.
ANSWER: ________
RATIO:___________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________

8. Scientific method are procedures that scientists follow in doing their research and it consists of five basic processes.
Which of the following correctly presents its processes?
a. Observation, prediction, testing, interpretation, communication
b. Observation, testing, prediction, interpretation, communication
c. Observation, prediction, testing, communication, interpretation
d. Observation, testing, interpretation, prediction, communication
ANSWER: ________
RATIO:___________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________

9. Researchers have consistently found that married men live longer than single men. From this finding, we can conclude
that
a. marriage causes men to live longer.
b. if a man gets married, he adds years to his life.
c. marriage correlates with longer life in men.
d. being single causes men to die earlier.
ANSWER: ________
RATIO:___________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________

10. Fraud and misconduct are relatively rare in science. Researchers tend to be more cautious and honest to preserve the
integrity of their work. The following statements all adhere to research ethics except:
a. a researcher who obtained an informed consent for his respondents.
b. a researcher who used the words or ideas of other researchers and cited and acknowledged them properly.
c. a researcher who stood by his findings even if it contradicts his prediction.
d. a researcher who discussed a piece of information which did not transpire during the study.
ANSWER: ________
RATIO:___________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________

This document and the information thereon is the property of

PHINMA Education (Department of Psychology) 6 of 7
RATIONALIZATION ACTIVITY (THIS WILL BE DONE DURING THE FACE TO FACE INTERACTION)
The instructor will now rationalize the answers to the students. You can now ask questions and debate among yourselves.
Write the correct answer and correct/additional ratio in the space provided.
1. ANSWER: ________
RATIO:_______________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
2. ANSWER: ________
RATIO:_______________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
3. ANSWER: ________
RATIO:_______________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
4. ANSWER: ________
RATIO:_______________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
5. ANSWER: ________
RATIO:_______________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
6. ANSWER: ________
RATIO:_______________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
7. ANSWER: ________
RATIO:_______________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
8. ANSWER: ________
RATIO:_______________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
9. ANSWER: ________
RATIO:_______________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
10. ANSWER: ________
RATIO:_______________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________

LESSON WRAP-UP (5 minutes)

You will now mark (encircle) the session you have finished today in the tracker below. This is simply a visual to help you
track how much work you have accomplished and how much work there is left to do.

You are done with the session! Let’s track your progress.

To better gauge your understanding in this discussion, kindly answer the following questions with honesty:
1. What part of the discussion caught your interest?
2. What part of the discussion did you find confusing?

(For the next lesson, continue working on module for session #3, The Nervous System)

This document and the information thereon is the property of

PHINMA Education (Department of Psychology) 7 of 7