Hypothesis Development: Where Research Questions Come From Chapter 2 Hypothesis Development: Where Research Questions Come From Dawn M. McBride The Process of Research in Psychology Second Edition

Steps in the Research Process Step 1: Choosing a research question Step 2: Conducting a literature review Steps in the Research Process Step 3: Making a hypothesis Step 4: Designing the study Step 5: Conducting the study Step 6: Analyzing the data Step 7: Reporting the results Dawn M. McBride - The Process of Research in Psychology, 2nd Edition © 2013 SAGE Publications, Inc.

Hypothesis Development Choosing a Research Area Conducting a Literature Review Identify a Research Question Making Hypotheses Dawn M. McBride - The Process of Research in Psychology, 2nd Edition © 2013 SAGE Publications, Inc.

Choosing a Research Question (Step 1) Dawn M. McBride - The Process of Research in Psychology, 2nd Edition © 2013 SAGE Publications, Inc.

Choosing a Research Question (Step 1) Primary motivation for designing and conducting a study: Answer a question Questions come from many sources. Primarily what the researcher is interested in learning about. Dawn M. McBride - The Process of Research in Psychology, 2nd Edition © 2013 SAGE Publications, Inc.

Choosing a Research Question (Step 1) Research questions should be: important to gaining new knowledge in the field answerable with the scientific method Dawn M. McBride - The Process of Research in Psychology, 2nd Edition © 2013 SAGE Publications, Inc.

Types of Research Questions: (Step 1) Descriptive To what extent a behavior occurs What are the levels of anxiety among college students? Students’ needs for career counseling What the nature of the behavior is How does anxiety manifest itself in college students? Students’ attitudes toward help-seeking Whether behaviors occur together Do college students who smoke also tend to be anxious?

Types of Research Questions: (Step 1) Causal Manipulate a variable to show a cause-effect Types of events cause college students to be anxious (give a speech vs. take an exam) Students infected with the cold virus get flu symptoms Patients treated with CBT show less depression than patients in the wait list Dawn M. McBride - The Process of Research in Psychology, 2nd Edition © 2013 SAGE Publications, Inc.

Choosing a Research Question (Step 1) Where questions come from: Researcher’s interests Testing a theory (explanation of behavior) Previous empirical findings: Literature review on a topic Dawn M. McBride - The Process of Research in Psychology, 2nd Edition © 2013 SAGE Publications, Inc.

Conducting a Literature Review (Step 2) Dawn M. McBride - The Process of Research in Psychology, 2nd Edition © 2013 SAGE Publications, Inc.

Literature Review (Step 2) Search databases to find original reports of studies in area of interest to learn: what is already known methods that have been used previously and information to justify hypotheses A literature review research question will add to the knowledge base without duplicating what is already known. Dawn M. McBride - The Process of Research in Psychology, 2nd Edition © 2013 SAGE Publications, Inc.

How to Conduct a Lit. Review (Step 2) Search databases to Identify relevant studies to a research question. Locate reviews of research in an area Look at references of articles found Dawn M. McBride - The Process of Research in Psychology, 2nd Edition © 2013 SAGE Publications, Inc.

Conducting a Literature Review (Step 2) PsycINFO and PsycArticles: is a searchable database that contains records of articles, books, and book chapters written by researchers about research studies in an area of psychology. All versions of PsycINFO can be searched by topic words words that appear in the citation author names journal in which the article was published. Dawn M. McBride - The Process of Research in Psychology, 2nd Edition © 2013 SAGE Publications, Inc.

Conducting a Literature Review (Step 2) PubMed and ERIC: Journals that publish research in biological and medical areas can be found by searching the PubMed database. Articles in areas related to education can be found in the ERIC (Education Resources Information Center) database. Dawn M. McBride - The Process of Research in Psychology, 2nd Edition © 2013 SAGE Publications, Inc.

Conducting a Literature Review (Step 2) Other Sources Search engines that can find articles relevant to your topic that have not been peer reviewed by other researchers Google Scholar will search the Web for academic journals and books to find articles relevant to a topic or written by a specific author. Dawn M. McBride - The Process of Research in Psychology, 2nd Edition © 2013 SAGE Publications, Inc.

Types of Research Articles (Step 2) Journal Articles - written to describe research to other researchers (peer review) Empirical Data based, report one or more studies Review organize and summarize many studies Theoretical Discuss theories in an area of interest Dawn M. McBride - The Process of Research in Psychology, 2nd Edition © 2013 SAGE Publications, Inc.

Conducting a Literature Review (Step 2) Structure of an empirical journal article: Abstract – PsycINFO Introduction Method - Participants, Materials/Apparatus, Design, Procedure Results Discussion References Dawn M. McBride - The Process of Research in Psychology, 2nd Edition © 2013 SAGE Publications, Inc.

Making Hypotheses (Step 3) Dawn M. McBride - The Process of Research in Psychology, 2nd Edition © 2013 SAGE Publications, Inc.

Making Hypotheses (Step 3) The primary goals of a literature review are to determine what is known and not known in a specific area gather information to develop a hypothesis A hypothesis is a predicted answer to the research question is based on theories and/or research findings Dawn M. McBride - The Process of Research in Psychology, 2nd Edition © 2013 SAGE Publications, Inc.

Making Hypotheses (Step 3) Theory-Driven (deductive reasoning) Object relations theory predicts that children who grow up feeling high levels of secure attachment to parental figures develop a more positive sense of self (self-esteem) than children who grow up feeling low levels of secure attachment. And Ideas about the self developed in childhood shape the personality into adulthood.

Making Hypotheses (Step 3) Theory-Driven (deductive reasoning) Based in objects relation theory In a study with college students, your research question and hypotheses in the area of parental attachment and self-esteem could be:

Making Hypotheses (Step 3) Theory-Driven (deductive reasoning) Research Question What is the nature of the relation of secure parental attachment to self esteem Hypothesis College students who report higher levels of secure parental attachment will report higher levels of self esteem than peers who report low levels of secure parental attachment

Making Hypotheses (Step 3) Data-Driven (inductive reasoning) A researcher interested in depression among Latino/as found that previous empirical research has shown that Self-esteem (SE) is related to depression (-) and that Self Esteem (EI) is related to ethnic identity (+) Potential inductive research question

Making Hypotheses (Step 3) Data-Driven (inductive reasoning) Research question What is the nature of the relation of ethnic identity to depression? If Self-esteem (SE) is related to depression (-) and Self-esteem (EI) is related to ethnic identity (+) Hypothesis Therefore, EI will be (-) related to Depression

Research Questions Hypotheses Theory Driven Data-Driven Descriptive Causal Dawn M. McBride - The Process of Research in Psychology, 2nd Edition © 2013 SAGE Publications, Inc.

Problem: Using inappropriate search engines— Common Pitfalls Problem: Using inappropriate search engines— students often use unreliable and incomplete search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Wikipedia Problem: Use of inappropriate sources not peer reviewed or are not the most relevant sources for the research question of interest. Problem: Hypotheses stated too without addressing specific aspects of the study. Dawn M. McBride - The Process of Research in Psychology, 2nd Edition © 2013 SAGE Publications, Inc.

Common Pitfalls Problem: Focus on full text articles —oftentimes students will focus a literature review too heavily on articles with full text access online, missing important studies for their topic. Problem: Only reading the Abstract —because the Abstract contains a summary of the article, students sometimes believe that they can fully understand the article by just reading the Abstract. Dawn M. McBride - The Process of Research in Psychology, 2nd Edition © 2013 SAGE Publications, Inc.