PSYCO105 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Internal Validity, Psychological Testing
31 Jan 2017
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Most basic goal of science is to describe phenomena. Descriptive research seeks to identify how humans and other animals behave, particularly in natural settings. Provides information about the diversity of behaviour and may yield clues about potential cause-effect relations that are later tested. In depth analysis of an individual, group, or event. By studying a single case in detail, researchers typically hope to discover situations in general. Being a poor method for determining cause-effect relations. Researcher observes behaviour as it occurs in a natural setting, attempting to avoid influencing the behaviour. An experiment has three characteristics: researcher manipulated (controls) one or more variables, researcher measures whether manipulation influences other variables, researchers attempts to control extraneous facts that may influence outcome. Represents the degree to which an experiment supports clear causal conclusions. If an experiment is well designed and properly conducted, we can be confident that the independent variable really was the cause of differences.
