PSYA01H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Descriptive Statistics, Standard Deviation, Central Tendency
Document Summary
Scientific method: a set of rules that governs the collection and analysis of data gained through observational studies or experiments. Naturalistic observation: the observation of the behaviour of people or other animals in their natural environments. Clinical observation: the observation of the behaviour of people who are undergoing diagnosis or treatment. Correlation studies: the examination of relations between two or more measurements of behaviour or other characteristics of people or other animals. Experiment: a study in which the researcher changes the value of an independent variable and observes whether this manipulation affects the value of a dependent variable. Only experiments can confirm the existence of cause-and-effect relations among variables. 5 steps for scientific method: identify the problem and formulate hypothetical cause and effect relationship among variables, design the experiment, perform the experiments, evaluate the hypothesis by examining the data from the study, communicate the results.
