The Ignorant Man’s Notion: Creative And New Ideas Arise From Nothing And Are Unrelated To Anything

The Goal: Add New Information To The Scientific Knowledge Base To accomplish this goal you must first learn what is currently known about a subject or construct.

Where Do Scientific Ideas Come From? Examples of Real World Problems Promote energy conservation. Augment the educational performance of high school students. Increase the study efficiency of college students. Select applicants who will be successful salespersons.

Where Do Scientific Ideas Come From? Examples of Observation and Intuition Freud’s theory: The emphasis on sexuality. The bystander effect. The habituation of protozoa. Potential Shortcoming: Does not necessarily link to other research on the same construct.

The Royal Road To Research Ideas: Base Your Hypothesis On Existing Research Limiting Conditions (External Validity): Determine the circumstances in which previous findings do and do not apply. Explain Conflicting Findings: Propose and test a hypothesis which would explain apparently contradictory findings. Point To A Paucity: Make a case that there is a lack of research in a potentially important areas.

Reasons For Reviewing The Literature To make a contribution you must base your research on what is already known. Literature reviews prevent duplication of effort. You can learn to avoid problems that other researchers have experienced. 4. Save time by gaining valuable information. 5. Learn how to best assess variables and what tasks are likely to prove useful.

The Funnel Approach To Literature Reviews: Moving From Broad To Specific Start broadly with secondary sources such as textbooks. Move to more specific sources like book chapters. Read the primary sources, journal articles.

A Few Tips On A Good Literature Review 1. Read a recent review of the literature to obtain an overview of the topic and suggestions regarding important topics. 2. Find a recent article on your topic and check the articles in the reference section. 3. If possible avoid referencing the net and other sources not subject to critical review. 4. Make every effort not to reference secondary sources, go to the primary source.

More Tips On A Good Literature Review 5. Do not reference abstracts, go to the journal. Insist on the genuine article. 6. Know your most important computer databases: PsycInfo, PsycArticles, Social Science Citation Index, and Current Contents. 7. Search computer databases by critical keyword or author. 8. Practice using computer search engines until your eyes are on your cheeks. As a scientist, you can be less but no more than you can find.

Back In The Antediluvian Days: Psychological Abstracts ROM Catalogs

What A Difference A Server Makes PsycInfo, PsycArticles and Other Databases

Laws And Theories Laws: General principles that apply in all situations Theories: An integrated set of principles that explains some, but not all, observed relationships within a given domain of inquiry.

What Makes For A Good Theory? General: Summarize many different outcomes. 2. Parsimonious: Provides the simplest possible account of those outcomes. 3. Heuristic: Generates ideas for future research. 4. Falsifiable (not tautological): Variables can be measured, hypothesized relations between variables can be tested, and outcomes can be conceived which would be inconsistent with the theory. 13

Definitions You Will Never Forget Hypothesis: A specific and falsifiable prediction of a relationship between two or more variables. Independent Variable: In an experiment, the variable manipulated by the investigator. 3. Dependent Variable: In an experiment, the variable caused by the independent variable. 4. Predictor Variable: In a correlational study, the variable used to forecast the occurrence or frequency of another variable. 5. Outcome Variable: In a correlational study, the variable hypothesized to change in relation to the predictor variable. 14