Research methods - features of a science

Question 1

what is objectivity and why is it important

Answer 1

data should be collected and interpreted in ways that avoid bias meaning the data is not influenced by the researcher’s opinions or expectations. Research that has been affected by bias produces subjective conclusions

Question 2

what is replicability and why is it important

Answer 2

other scientists can repeat experiments and observations. Original positive results could have been the result of fraud, an unknown variable in the ppts or a feature of the experimental environment, or the positive result could have happened by chance

Question 3

define falsifiability

Answer 3

for a theory to be scientific, it needs to be constructed in a way that it can be empirically tested. This means the theory can be tested in a way that demonstrates it is not true

Question 4

define paradigm

Answer 4

scientists within each scientific field share a set of established assumptions known as paradigms, and scientists gather evidence to support these shared views. E.g. behaviourists argued psychologists should study fully observable stimulus-response mechanisms to explain behaviour, not internal mental processes

Question 5

define paradigm shift

Answer 5

eventually, sufficient evidence to support a new paradigm is collected, and at this point, the majority of the scientific community feels they can no longer support the old paradigm and move at once to the new paradigm in a paradigm shift. E.g. study of internal mental processes using FMRI

Question 6

what are the stages of scientific theory construction

Answer 6

inductive (bottom-up) process of theory construction
1. observation of the real world
2. construct a testable hypotheses
3. conduct an experiment and gain experimental data
4. propose a theory that explains the results

Question 7

what is the importance of hypothesis testing

Answer 7

the more a theory can withstand testing its assumptions with hypothesis testing, the greater the confidence there should be in the validity of that scientific theory