Introduction to Research Methods

CONTENTS
Descriptive Methods
Predictive Methods
Explanatory Methods

Descriptive Method
There are three types of descriptive methods
Observational Method:
Researchers simply observes human or other
animal behavior
Psychologists approach observation in two ways
a) Naturalistic Observation;
observing the behavior of human or
animal by their nature habit
b) Laboratory Observation;
observing the living object (human
or animal) in a fixed and controlled
situation, usually laboratory

Case Study Method:

An in-depth study of one or more individuals
E.g Freud used case study methods to develop
theory over personality development
Similarly Jean Piaget used to develop theory of
cognitive development
So it simply involves describing the individual(s)
being studied
Survey Method:
This is the third method relies on description
Questioning individuals on a topic or topics and then
describing their responses
Surveys can be administered by mail, over the
phone, on the internet, or in a personal interview.

Advantages
the survey method has advantage over the
descriptive method that allows research to study the
larger groups of individuals
BUT (Disadvantages)
one concern is whether the group of people who
participate in the study (the sample size)
is representative of all the people about whom the
study is meant to be ( the population)
Remedy
This concern can be overcome through random
sampling
Random sampling is achieved through random
selection in which each member of the population is
equally likely to be chosen

Predictive (Rational) Methods

This method not only allow research to describe
behavior but also to predict from one variable to
another.
So there are two methods
Correlational Method
Experimental Method
Correlational Method:
A method that assesses the degree of
relationship between two variables.
Positive relationship, a relationship where one
variable increases the other increases as well
Negative relationship, a relationship in which an
increase in one is accompanied by the decrease in
the other

Predictive (Rational) Methods

Quasi-experimental Method:
the method enables research to compare
naturally occurring groups of individual.
Simply to look for differences between the
naturally occurring groups
this is usually call subject or participants
variable- characteristics of participants can not be
changed
we do not systematically manipulate the variable
of interest but to measure them as alternate
explanations is the idea that uncontrolled
variable may be responsible for an observed
relationship.

Explanatory Methods
Experimental Method:
Using this technique the research carefully
eliminate the possibility of alternate options by
having proper control.
When using the experimental method, the
researcher manipulates at least one variable known
as independent variable and measure at least
one variable know as dependent variable
comparative purposes , independent variable
has to have at least two groups
control groups; serve as baseline
or standard to research
experimental groups; receive
some level of independent variable,
receive treatment

Advantages:
Allows description of behavior(s)
Supports reliable predictions of one variable
based on another
Supports cause-and-effect explanations

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