Planning and Conducting Research

Steps in Psychological Research

Psychological research aims to test a theory, but the point of research is not just to prove that we are right but, more importantly, to prove to others that our idea is right.

The notion described is known as empiricism, a crucial feature of scientific research.

For research to be accepted by the scientific and psychological community, it must be empirical, reliable and valid (we will get into the latter two a little later). For research to be established as empirical, reliable and valid theories, it needs to be tested vigorously and meticulously, following the guideline of how research should be conducted.

10 Steps in Planning and Conducting Research

The first three steps involve deciding what you wish to research. First, researchers decide roughly a research area or topic they want to explore.

• The first step is very broad, so the researchers do a literature review of the area of interest to narrow this down. From this, researchers establish a gap, essentially something that has not been explained by empirical research, and this is something that is usually researched. Unless there is a theory with which they do not necessarily agree.
• Next, the researcher needs to formulate a hypothesis. The hypothesis needs to be a predictive statement of what the researcher expects to find that is testable and operationalised, meaning it needs to identify variables that will be tested and how they will be measured.

The image shows how the independent variables (sleep-deprived versus rested) affect the dependent variable (cognitive abilities), created in Canva using images from freepik.com.

Following these steps, the researcher can begin to design their research. This is when the researcher establishes how they will actually measure the variables.

Conducting the research

The following steps involve actually carrying out the experiment.

• Next, participants need to be recruited using a sampling technique. There are various sampling techniques, but researchers should aim to choose one that is not influenced by their bias or subjective opinion. If this does occur, then the research will have issues with validity.

Generally, it is believed that the sampling method influenced by little experimenter bias is a random sampling method, and volunteer or opportunity samples are the most affected.

Random sampling methods use a generator to pick participants, so the researcher has little to no influence over the latter, which recruits whoever is available at the time. In addition, researchers should try to recruit a large representative sample so that the study's findings are generalisable.

Following this, the researcher collects data from participants through conducting their research. The method can be either quantitative, qualitative or a mix of both.

Planning and conducting research: Data analysis

After the data has been collected, it should be analysed using appropriate tests. The main purpose of research is to test if the findings empirically support or disprove the hypothesis. Therefore, statistical tests, such as hypothesis testing, are carried out.

Once the data has been analysed, it should be investigated and interpreted to identify what the study results infer. The final step is to write up the experiment in the form of a psychological report.

Overview of the 10 Steps in Planning and Conducting Research

Let's summarise what the 10 steps in planning and conducting research are!

1. Identifying research question
2. Carrying out a literature review
3. Formulating hypothesis
4. Planning research design
5. Recruiting participants via sampling methods
6. Collecting data
7. Analysing data
8. Statistical tests to test the hypothesis
9. Making inferences concerning results found
10. Writing a psychological report of the study

Research Methods in Social Psychology

Although the steps in planning and conducting research are the same across all psychology domains, let's look at how research methods in social psychology may be carried out.

Example of Planning and Conducting Research in Social Psychology

Researchers carried out an experiment to identify if there was a relationship between media violence and aggression. As this is a correlational study, the researcher did not need to identify the independent and dependent variables.

The researchers recruited 50 participants using a random sampling method and decided to measure the variables by:

• Participants were asked to complete a questionnaire over six weeks that measured how often they saw violent matters reported in media outlets.
• At the end of the experiment, participants completed the Aggression Questionnaire (AGQ), a self-report scale used to measure different forms of aggression, such as physical, verbal, hostility etc.

After the data was collected, the experimenters analysed the data and completed a correlational analysis to identify if the data supported or disproved their hypothesis. The results inferred that people who are exposed more to media violence report higher aggression levels. The experiment was reported in the form of a psychological report.

Research can reveal a lot about society, performance vector created by rawpixel.com - www.freepik.com

Reliability and Validity in Research

As we mentioned earlier, two of the core features of research are reliability and validity. If research lacks reliability or validity, the results found are likely inaccurate and will not be accepted by the psychology community.

There are different types of reliability and validity. To carry out a study with high validity and reliability, they can implement different methods and techniques in their research. A few of these are shown in the table below.

Another important tool to ensure that research is valid is that researchers should identify types of bias and how they could control them.