The Scientific Method and Psychology Research

How do researchers investigate psychological phenomena? They utilize a process known as the scientific method to study different aspects of how people think and behave. This process not only allows scientists to investigate and understand different psychological phenomena, but it also provides researchers and others a way to share and discuss the results of their studies.

What Is the Scientific Method?

What is the scientific method and how is it used in psychology? The scientific method is essentially a step-by-step process that researchers can follow to determine if there is some type of relationship between two or more variables.

心理学家和其他社会科学家regularly propose explanations for human behavior. On a more informal level, people make judgments about the intentions,动机, and actions of others on a daily basis.

While the everyday judgments we make about human behavior are subjective and anecdotal, researchers use the scientific method to study psychology in an objective and systematic way. The results of these studies are often reported in popular media, which leads many to wonder just how or why researchers arrived at the conclusions they did.

In order to truly understand how psychologists and other researchers reach these conclusions, you need to know more about the research process that is used to study psychology and the basic steps that are utilized when conducting any type of psychological research. By knowing the steps of the scientific method, you can better understand the process researchers go through to arrive at conclusions about human behavior.

Reasons to Use the Steps of the Scientific Method

The心理学研究的目标是用来描述、解释、预测或影响心理过程或行为的。为此，心理学家运用科学的方法进行心理学研究。科学方法是研究人员用来提出问题、收集数据和得出结论的一套原则和程序。

心理学科学研究的目标是什么？研究人员不仅寻求描述行为和解释这些行为发生的原因；他们还努力创万博maxbetx官网登陆造可以用来预测甚至改变人类行为的研究。

需要了解的关键术语

Before you begin exploring the scientific method steps, there are some key terms and definitions that you should be familiar with.

• Hypothesis: An educated guess about the possible relationship between two or more variables.
• Variable: A factor or element that can change in observable and measurable ways.
• 操作定义:一个完整的描述f exactly how variables are defined, how they will be manipulated, and how they will be measured.

The Steps of the Scientific Method

虽然研究可能会有所不同，但这些是心理学家和科学家在调查人类行为时使用的基本步骤。

Step 1. Make an Observation

Before a researcher can begin, they must choose a topic to study. Once an area of interest has been chosen, the researchers must then conduct a thorough review of the existing literature on the subject. This review will provide valuable information about what has already been learned about the topic and what questions remain to be answered.

一篇文献综述可能涉及到查阅几十年前书籍和学术期刊上的大量书面材料。研究人员收集的相关信息将在最终公布的研究结果的引言部分介绍。这个背景材料也将帮助研究者在进行心理学研究的第一个主要步骤-制定一个假设。万博maxbetx官网登陆

第二步。问一个问题

Once a researcher has observed something and gained some background information on the topic, the next step is to ask a question. The researcher will form a hypothesis, which is an educated guess about the relationship between two or more variables

例如，研究人员可能会问一个关于睡眠和学习成绩之间关系的问题。睡眠充足的学生在学校的考试中表现更好吗？

为了形成一个好的假设，思考关于某个特定主题的不同问题是很重要的。你还应该考虑如何调查原因。可证伪性是任何有效假设的重要组成部分。换句话说，如果一个假设是错误的，科学家就需要有一种方法来证明它是错误的。

第三步。检验你的假设并收集数据

Once you have a solid hypothesis, the next step of the scientific method is to put this hunch to the test by collecting data. The exact methods used to investigate a hypothesis depend on exactly what is being studied. There are two basic forms of research that a psychologist might utilize – descriptive research or experimental research.

Descriptive researchis typically used when it would be difficult or even impossible to manipulate the variables in question. Examples of descriptive research include case studies,自然主义观察, and correlation studies. Phone surveys that are often used by marketers are one example of descriptive research.

Correlational studies在心理学研究中很常见。虽然他们不允许研究万博maxbetx官网登陆人员确定因果关系，但他们确实可以发现不同变量之间的关系，并衡量这些关系的强度。

实验研究is used to explore cause-and-effect relationships between two or more variables. This type of research involves systematically manipulating an自变量and then measuring the effect that it has on a defined因变量. One of the major advantages of this method is that it allows researchers to actually determine if changes in one variable actually cause changes in another.

While万博maxbetx官网登陆心理学实验通常都很复杂简单实验is fairly basic but does allow researchers to determine cause-and-effect relationships between variables. Most simple experiments use a对照组(those who do not receive the treatment) and an实验组(those who do receive the treatment).

第四步。检查结果并得出结论

Once a researcher has designed the study and collected the data, it is time to examine this information and draw conclusions about what has been found.使用统计学, researchers can summarize the data, analyze the results, and draw conclusions based on this evidence.

那么，研究人员如何决定一项研究的结果意味着什么呢？统计分析不仅可以支持（或反驳）研究者的假设，还可以用来确定研究结果是否具有统计意义。

When results are said to be statistically significant, it means that it is unlikely that these results are due to chance.

根据这些观察，研究人员必须确定结果的含义。在某些情况下，实验将支持一个假设，但在其他情况下，它将无法支持该假设。

So what happens if the results of a psychology experiment do not support the researcher's hypothesis? Does this mean that the study was worthless? Just because the findings fail to support the hypothesis does not mean that the research is not useful or informative. In fact, such research plays an important role in helping scientists develop new questions and hypotheses to explore in the future.

After conclusions have been drawn, the next step is to share the results with the rest of the scientific community. This is an important part of the process because it contributes to the overall knowledge base and can help other scientists find new research avenues to explore.

第五步。报告结果

The final step in a psychology study is to report the findings. This is often done by writing up a description of the study and publishing the article in an academic or professional journal. The results of psychological studies can be seen in peer-reviewed journals such as心理学公报,社会心理学杂志万博maxbetx官网登陆,Developmental Psychology，以及其他许多。

期刊文章的结构遵循作者所概述的特定格式美国心理协会. 在这些文章中，研究人员：

• Provide a brief history and background on previous research
• Present their hypothesis
• 确定参与研究的人员以及他们是如何被挑选出来的
• Provide operational definitions for each variable
• Describe the measures and procedures that were used to collect data
• 解释如何分析收集的信息
• Discuss what the results mean

Why is such a detailed record of a psychological study so important? By clearly explaining the steps and procedures used throughout the study, other researchers can thenreplicatethe results. The editorial process employed by academic and professional journals ensures that each article that is submitted undergoes a thorough peer review, which helps ensure that the study is scientifically sound.

Once published, the study becomes another piece of the existing puzzle of our knowledge base on that topic.