PSYC 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Scientific Method, Blind Experiment, Statistical Inference

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 100
• Professor: Jordan Poppenk

Document Summary

Explain the importance of verifiability, reliability and objectivity. Verifiability: verifiable if it can be tested by others. Explain the five principal steps of the scientific method: formulate a hypothesis, design a study, collect the data, analyze the data and obtain results, draw conclusions. Identify characteristics that are important in a research study and explain why. Independent: the independent variable is what is being manipulated by the experimenter. Example: how many hours of sunlight plants are exposed to. Dependent: the dependent variable is what is being measured. Explain the difference between an experiment and a correlational study. Correlation: statistics are used to show correlations. Degree to which two variables appear to be associated with each other. Experiment: controlled conditions to manipulate variables and observe the outcomes, allow you to conclude causation. Identify the utility, advantages, and disadvantages of correlational studies. Correlational studies are used to determine the relationship between two variables.