Research Methods Unit 1

• empiricism: using evidence from your five sense as the basis for conclusions
• theory: set of simple statements that describe general principles about how variables relate to one another
• hypothesis: specific outcome that the researcher will observe; stated in terms of study design
• data: set of observations gathered in a study
• preregistered hypothesis: researcher states what outcome is expected to be before the study is conducted
• replication is how we build evidence to support a theory
• good theories are testable and falsifiable
• falsifiable: able to be disproven by experimental results
• universalism: claims are evaluated of their own merit
• communality: science belongs to the community
• disinterestedness: follow the data, not your own biases
• organized skepticism: scientists question everything
• the three types of research are basic, applied, and translational
• basic: enhances general body of knowledge
• applied: focused on practical problem; conducted in real life settings;
• translational: uses what has been learned from basic and addresses real-world problems
• scientists share their findings in conference presentation and peer-reviewed publication
• mozart effect --> belief that making your unborn baby listen to classical music will make them smarter
• comparison group: group you are comparing to in an experiment
• confounds: alternative explanations for outcome
• confederate: person who is given a role to play in a study
• it is not a good idea to rely on experience because you don't have a comparison group
• it is not a good idea to rely on intuition because of biases
• availability heuristic: estimating the likelihood of events based on availability in memory
• present/present bias: incorrectly estimating the relationship between an event and its outcome
• confirmation bias: looking for evidence that matches up with what you already believe or what you want to believe
• it is a bad idea to rely on authority because they might not actually be an expert, they could be getting paid
• empirical and review are the different types of articles
• empirical article: research report that describes a study
• review article: paper that summarizes and comments on findings that were published as primary literature
• paywalled: subscription only
• open access: free for use without subscription
• types of media that broadcast science: newspapers, magazines, TV and radio, podcasts, YouTube
• disinformation: something deliberately created to be false or misleading
• variable: factor that can change in an experiment
• a variable has to have at least 2 levels
• constant: has the potential to change but does not in a given study
• measure variable: observed naturally and recorded
• manipulated variable: controlled by researcher
• some variables can't be manipulated for practical or ethical reasons