research methods exam 1 Flashcards
research producer
someone who conducts scientific research, including students
research consumer
anyone and everyone (ex: researchers, teachers, doctors, customers)
theory data cycle
theory- research q- research design to test hypothesis- hypothesis is preregistered ideally- data- leads to either supporting data or nonsupporting data
theory (theory-data cycle)
set of statements describing general principles about how variables relate to one another. Develops from observation
def. of research question & hypothesis (theory-data cycle)
testable prediction, predicts the outcomes of your research based on theory
journal vs journalism
journal: A monthly or quarterly periodical containing peer-reviewed articles on a specific academic discipline or subdiscipline, written for a scholarly audience, AKA scientific journal
journalism: news and commentary published or broadcast in the popular media and produced for a general audience
basic, applied, and translational research
basic: goal is to enhance the general body of knowledge
applied: goal is to find solutions to a practical problem, with a local real world context (in labs)
translational: uses lessons from basic research to test in real world situations
research is better than experience
-experience has no comparison group (we need to be able to compare in order to prove)
-experience is confounded (there could be an extraneous variable that is causing change)
-research is probabilistic (findings are not expected to explain all the cases all the time, but do explain some cases)
swayed by a good story
accepting a conclusion just because it makes sense or feels natural. We tend to believe good stories—even ones that are false
availability heuristic
incorrectly estimate the frequency of something, relying predominantly on instances that easily come to mind rather than using all possible evidence in evaluating a conclusion
present-present bias
incorrectly estimate the relationship between an event and its outcome, focusing on times the event and outcome are present, while failing to consider evidence that is absent and harder to notice
confirmation bias
tendency to consider only the evidence that supports a hypothesis, including asking only the questions that will lead to the expected answer
bias blind spot
tendency for people to think that compared to others, they themselves are less likely to engage in biased reasoning
trusting authorities
we should base our beliefs on research, not authorities, because they can be wrong/using intuition or experience
sections of research articles
-abstract: concise summary of the article, briefly describes the study’s hypotheses, method, and major results
-introduction: first section of regular text, first paragraphs typically explain the topic of the study, middle paragraphs lay out the background for the research & the final paragraph states the specific research questions, goals, or hypotheses for the current study
-method: explains in detail how the researchers conducted their study, typically contains subsections such as Participants, Materials, Procedure, and Apparatus, ideal Method section gives enough detail that if you wanted to repeat the study, you could do so without having to ask the authors any questions
-results: describes the quantitative and qualitative results of the study, including the statistical tests used to analyze the data, provides tables and figures that summarize key results
-discussion: generally summarizes the study’s research question and methods and indicates how well the results of the study supported the hypotheses, usually discuss the study’s importance, authors may discuss alternative explanations for their data and pose interesting questions raised by the research
-references: contains a full bibliographic listing of all the sources the authors cited in writing their article
