PSY-1200 Lecture 3: Lecture 3
Document Summary
Critical thinking: does not blindly accept, examine, evaluate and analyze. Research/experimentation: manipulation of some factor (ind. variable) to measure its impact on another factor (dep. variable) includes random selection and assignment and control groups. Case study: in depth look at a single example: among the oldest of research methods, disadvantages. Dramatic or atypical cases are misleading: advantages. Naturalistic observation: watching behaviors occur in the environment and circumstance natural to the organism: advantages. No anthropomorphism or unjusti ed generalizations, you see it as it is. Takes a lot of time and patience. Any interference destroys the natural aspect of the observation. Survey: questioning or soliciting self-report of a representative, random sample of the target group: advantages. Eliminates the impossible task of including every individual in target group. Proven to be a fair representation of the larger population: disadvantages. Entirely possible to choose the most unrepresentative sample. Responses can be insanely biased by the wording of the question.
