Five Types of Psychological Research
Uploaded by sgulley13 on Nov 01, 2011
The Research Methods of Psychology
Psychology is a study that is used in many fields of study and practice. Today it has evolved to a research based multidisciplinary machine. Its foundation is mainly based on five methods of research: Naturalistic observation, Survey, Case Study, Correlation Design, and Experimental. In this paper, I am going to explain each of these methods. Maybe this will help explain the foundation that Psychology is built on.
The first method of research is Naturalistic Observation. In this method the researcher will observe their subject in the natural habitat. However, they have to be careful not to interfere. This method is best to research the natural reactions of a subject to stimuli in its environment. The only drawbacks are that this method can take a long time, and the sought after stimuli and response may never occur.
The second method is the survey method. In this method the researcher questions a pool pf people about their beliefs and attitudes toward a subject or question. It is imperative in this method to have a representative sample. Which is a group of people who represent all the major qualities of the group of people the researcher is questioning. The researchers questioning must also be unbiased and easy to understand, therefore choosing wording carefully is extremely important.
The third method is a case study. In this method the researcher obtains extensive information about a subject to learn about its behavior. This method is very useful when researching the rare and bizarre. A great example would be rare disorders in society. This method necessitates a impeccable attention to detail, and can be a tedious process. It does however, find out more about the research subject than all the other methods.
The fourth method is Correlation Design. In this method the researcher takes two instances and looks at their relationship. Correlations can be positive or negative. Positive means that the value in one goes up the same happens to the other, and negative means that when one instance occurs the other occurs less frequently. These relationships can be misleading, and the result can not be certain that there are only two variables. Therefore this method is most commonly used with other methods.
The fifth method is the Experimental Method. In this method the researcher manipulates...