Chapter 1 - Key Science Skills Flashcards
What is psychology?
The scientific investigation of mental processes (thinking, remembering and feeling) and behaviour.
What is science?
A field and practice obtains knowledge and generates theories through observation and experiment.
What is scientific research?
Ideas and theories generated through observation and experiment.
What is empirical evidence?
Information obtained through direct and systematic observation or experiment.
What ideas are non-scientific?
Ideas formed without empirical evidence or the use of scientific methods or principles.
What is pseudoscience?
Beliefs, theories, and practices that are mistakenly regarded as, or claim to be scientific, but are not because they do not use the methods of science.
What is the scientific method?
A procedure used to obtain knowledge that involves hypothesis formulation, testing, and retesting through processes of experimentation, observation, measurement, and recording.
What is a model?
A Representation of a concept, process, or behaviour, often made to simplify or make something easier to understand.
What is a theory?
A proposition or set of principles that is used to explain something or make predictions about relationships between concepts.
What is the aim?
A statement outlining the purpose of an investigation.
What is the hypothesis?
A testable prediction about the outcome of an investigation. It identifies the population, the strength and direction of a relationship between two variables.
What is a variable?
A condition or component of an experiment that can be measured or manipulated.
What is the population?
The group of people who are the focus of the research and from which the sample is drawn.
What is a controlled experiment?
A type of investigation in which the causal relationship between two variables is tested in a controlled environment; more specifically, the effect of the independent variable on the dependent variable is tested while aiming to control all other variables.
What is the independent variable?
The variable for which quantities are manipulated (controlled, selected, or changed) by the researcher, and the variable that is assumed to have a direct effect on the dependent variable.
What is the controlled variable?
Variables other than the independent variable that a researcher holds constant (controls) in an investigation, to ensure that changes in the dependent variable are entirely due to changes in the independent variable.
What is the dependent variable?
The variable the researcher measures in an experiment for changes it may experience due to the effect of the independent variable.
Is psychology a science?
Psychology is a science because its claims meet many of the key and relevant features of science including verifiability, objectivity, and provisionality and it often uses the scientific method.
How research occurs?
- Write a research question
- Identify the aim
- Formulate a hypothesis
- Design the method
- Collect and analyse the data
- Report the findings
What is the research question?
What you want to know.
How might the aim to written?
To test/investigate the effect/impact of (the independent variable) on (the dependent variable).
What does the conditions of the independent variable mean?
The different levels or groups of the independent variable.
What is a directional prediction?
Included in the hypothesis, it is whether we get more or less of the dependent variable when we add in or change the independent variable.
Identify the population, the conditions of the IV, DV and the directional prediction in the following:
It is hypothesised that VCE students who study for one hour per day will report lower levels of stress, during the examination period than those who complete not study.
Investigation methodologies means the same thing as what?
Research methodologies.
What is a method?
The method outlines how the research is going to be conducted.
What are investigation/research methodologies?
They are any of the different processes, techniques and/or types of studies researchers use to obtain information about psychological phenomena.
What is an experiment?
An experiment is when a cause and effect relationship is measured, by testing the effect of the independent variable on the dependent variable, in a controlled environment.
What are extraneous variables?
Any variable that is not the independent variable, but may cause unwanted effect of the dependent variable.
What are some examples of extraneous variables?
Time of day
Setting/environment
Participants interest in the topic
Demographic variables
If the researcher decides to control one or more of the extraneous variables what do/does they/it become?
A controlled variable.
In an experiment what is the control group?
The group used as a basis for comparison, so they are not exposed to experimental conditions or receive no experimental treatment or intervention.
In an experiment what is the experimental group?
The group exposed to the experimental conditions or to a manipulated independent variable.
In an experiment which group has the independent variable applied and which one does not?
IV applied = experimental group
IV not applied = control group