research methods: features of science

Question 1

What features is science meant to have?

Answer 1

• objectivity
• reliability
• empiricism
• rationality
• openness to scrutiny

Question 2

What is falsifiability?

Answer 2

The principle that a theory cannot be considered scientific unless it admits the possibility of being proved untrue (false)

Question 3

Who argued that the key criterion of a scientific theory is falsifiability?

Answer 3

Karl Popper (1934)

Question 4

What did Karl Popper suggest about falsifiability?

Answer 4

That genuine scientific theories should hold themselves up for hypothesis testing and the possibility of being proven false

Question 5

What theory did Popper propose?

Answer 5

The theory of falsification which suggests that a scientific principle had to be falsified to be true whereas pseudosciences couldn’t be falsified

Question 6

How do theories become the strongest?

Answer 6

By surviving attempts to falsify them

Question 7

What is replicability?

Answer 7

The extent to which scientific procedures and findings can be repeated by other researchers

Question 8

What method of Popper’s is replicability an important part of?

Answer 8

Popper’s hypothetico-deductive method

Question 9

How can scientific theory be ‘trusted’?

Answer 9

By being repeated across many different contexts and circumstances to see the extent at which the findings can be generalised and thus validated

Question 10

How should replication be carried out?

Answer 10

By scientists repeating their investigations using the same methods with as much rigour and precision as possible and finding the same results

Question 11

What is objectivity?

Answer 11

When all sources of personal bias are minimised so as not to distort or influence the research process
- objectivity is the basis of the empirical method

Question 12

What is the empirical method?

Answer 12

Scientific approaches that are based on the gathering of evidence through direct observation and experience

Question 13

Why should researchers maintain objectivity?

Answer 13

• To keep a ‘critical distance’during research
• so that their personal opinions or biases don’t ‘discolour’ the data they collect or influence the behaviour of the participants they are studying

Question 14

Which methods tend to be the most objective?

Answer 14

Methods that are associated with the greatest level of control, such as lab experiments

Question 15

What are examples of empirical method in psychology?

Answer 15

The experimental method and the observational method

Question 16

How does empiricism play a role in the scientific value of a theory?

Answer 16

A theory cannot claim to be scientific unless it has been empirically tested and verified

Question 17

What are three ways of improving objectivity?

Answer 17

• systematic data collection
• double-blind
• peer review
• control

Question 18

What is systematic data collection?

Answer 18

Data gathering is carefully planned out and consistent for each participant

Question 19

What is double-blind?

Answer 19

Researchers who don’t know the research aims collect data

Question 20

How does a control improve objectivity?

Answer 20

Removes extraneous variables to establish a cause and effect relationship between the IV and DV

Question 21

What is a paradigm?

Answer 21

A set of shared beliefs about the world within a scientific discipline

Question 22

What did Thomas Khun suggest?

Answer 22

What distinguishes scientific disciplines from non-scientific disciplines is a shared set of assumptions and beliefs - paradigms

Question 23

What is a paradigm shift?

Answer 23

The result of a scientific revolution when there is a significant change in the dominant unifying theory within a scientific discipline

Question 24

What is an example of a paradigm shift (Freud) ?

Answer 24

Freud’s pscyhodynamic theory and use of case studies was a paradigm shift from earlier religious and philosophical explanations that explained human behaviour as the result of concepts like ‘sin’

Question 25

What reasons might science not always be scientific?

Answer 25

• scientists become attached to their theories
• pressure may come from other organisations to alter research e.g. corporate interests such as ‘Big Pharma’
• new ideas in science may be discounted until they become widely accepted e.g. through a paradigm shift
• results may not fit a scientist’s personal views and values

Question 26

Why is psychodynamic theory criticised as not conforming to the criteria of science?

Answer 26

• Freud’s investigation of the unconscious uses idiographic methods of examining a single patient’s unique case and generalising it to the rest of the population which is unscientific.
• This approach is also criticised by its psychic determinism as we cannot truly explain or measure our unconscious but Freud merely tries to rationalise it with conscious thoughts
• e.g. research behind theories such as the Oedipal and Electra complex were based on subjective cases of individuals that were unfalsifiable as it only tested one person
• cannot be disproved and often impossible to see