Evaluating your ideas and Reading the Literature

1
Evaluating your ideas and Reading the Literature

• Psych 231 Research Methods in Psychology

2
Announcements

• Dont forget to do your library assignment!
• It is due in labs next week, but I strongly
  suggest that you do the assignment as soon as you
  can while the info is still fresh in your mind.
• Also for next weeks lab, make sure that you
  download and read the Raz, Kirsch, Polard,
  Nitkin-Kaner, (2006) before coming to lab.

3
Classic barriers mistakes

• Im not smart enough.
• Somebody else must have already done this.
• I dont know how to pursue the idea.
• Its too simple, something must be wrong.
• The idea will take too much work.
• Do consider the practicality of the work load,
  but dont be afraid of hard work.

Simple is good!
4
Classic barriers mistakes cont.

• Im not interested in the topic.
• Dont procrastinate and take your time
• Glued to your first idea.
• Be flexible, adjust your idea as you learn more
• I cant find any literature to review.

Our goal is that you come away from this course
with the knowledge and ability to see past these
pitfalls.
5
Are my ideas good?

• Evaluating your research ideas

6
Are my ideas good?

• Evaluating your research ideas

• Focus Is your idea specified enough to be
  manageable
• ROT rule
• Replicable - one time deal?
• Observable - can you measure it?
• Testable - can you test it can you falsify it?

7
Replication

• Many interesting results are not accepted until
  they are replicated
• Cold fusion - a potential answer to our energy
  needs
• The results were never replicated and are not
  generally accepted by the scientific community
• Extrasensory perception (ESP)
• Some proponents claim that ESP only occurs under
  certain unknown conditions and that it is
  impossible to predict when the conditions are
  right.

8
Observable

• Many interesting questions may not be examined
  experimentally because they arent observable
  (either directly or indirectly).

9
Testable

• Other hypotheses may not have objective
  testability (e.g., imaginary events)
• What if the dinosaurs hadnt become extinct?

• Many interesting hypotheses are not testable
  until they are further specified
• Meditation affects how good one feels about
  oneself.
• Which direction? What counts as meditation? How
  much meditation? What does feel good about
  oneself mean?

10
Example A research idea

• Getting the idea
• How do people remember things?
• This is a pretty big question
• To begin to answer it weve got to FOCUS
• Break the general idea down into smaller more
  specific ideas
• Develop theories as to how why
• Then we can begin using experiments to test parts
  of the theories

11
Example A research idea

• Focusing the idea
• What does memory involve?
• Encoding - getting the memories in
• Storage - keeping the memories
• Retrieval - getting the memories out
• Are all kinds of memory the same?
• Procedural vs. declarative memories
• Pictures vs. words
• How long do memories last?

12
Example A research idea

• Evaluating the idea (ROT)
• Can we re-do the experiments, do we get similar
  results?
• How do we observe memory?
• Recall tests, recognition tests, brain waves,
  ,,,
• Are our predictions testable?

• Reading the literature will help greatly with
  evaluating research ideas

13
Reading a research article

• How is it different from reading a novel?
• Style
• Objectives
• Structure

14
Reading a research article

• What's the goal of a research article?
• The reader to
• Know about the research
• Understand what was done
• Be convinced by the research (hopefully)
• Standardization of research report format
• APA style
• Organization and content reflects the logical
  thinking in scientific investigation
• Standardization helps with clarity
• Read with a critical eye

15
The anatomy of a research article

• The basic parts of a research article

16
The anatomy of a research article

• The basic parts of a research article
• Title and authors - gives you a general idea of
  the topic and specifically who did it
• Abstract - short summary of the article
• States the issue, the methods, major variables of
  interst, the findings, and the conclusions
• (in 120 words or less)
• First contact
• Shows up in PsycInfo
• Gets skimmed before reading the article

17
The anatomy of a research article

• The basic parts of a research article

• Introduction - gives you the background that you
  need
• What are the issues
• What is/are the theory(ies)
• What does the past research say
• What the rationale for doing this research
• What are the specific hypotheses
• Reading checklist
• 1) What is the author's goal?
• 2) What are the hypotheses?
• 3) If you had designed the experiment, how would
  YOU have done it?

18
The anatomy of a research article

• The basic parts of a research article

• Method - tells the reader exactly what was done
• Enough detail that the reader could actually
  replicate the study.
• Subsections
• Participants - who were the data collected from
• Apparatus/ Materials - what was used to conduct
  the study
• Procedure - how the study was conducted, what the
  participants did
• Reading checklist
• 1 a) Is your method better than theirs?
• b) Does the authors method actually test the
  hypotheses?
• c) What are the independent, dependent, and
  control variables?
• 2) Based on what the authors did, what results do
  YOU expect?

19
The anatomy of a research article

• The basic parts of a research article

• Results - gives a summary of the results and the
  statistical tests
• Reading checklist
• 1) Did the author get unexpected results?
• 2 a) How does the author interpret the results?
• b) How would YOU interpret the results?
• c) What implications would YOU draw from these
  results?

20
The anatomy of a research article

• The basic parts of a research article

• Discussion - the interpretation and implications
  of the results
• Reading checklist
• 1 a) Does YOUR interpretation or the authors'
  interpretation best represent the data?
• b) Do you or the author draw the most sensible
  implications and conclusions?
• References - full citations of all work cited
• Appendices - additional supplementary supporting
  material

21
Next Week

• Download Raz, Kirsch, Polard, Nitkin-Kaner,
  (2006) (full text available at library) and read
  the article for lab next week.
• Quiz 2 is due Wednesday before class (1 week from
  today)
• Have a good Labor Day
• See you on Wednesday