Kwalitatief onderzoek
Chapter 1 Psychology Is a Way of Thinking
Research producers, research consumers
Role of producer
They develop the ability to work in research laboratories and make new discoveries
Role of consumer
They need to be able to find, read and evaluate the research behind important policies, therapies
and workplace decisions, so they can make better more informed decisions by asking the right
questions
Evidence-based treatments: therapies that are supported by research
Critical consumer of data can help you and your future employers decide to invest time in some
programs but not others
How scientists work
1. They act as empiricists in their investigations.
2. They test theoris through research and, in turn, revise their theories based on the resulting data.
3. They follow norms in the scientific community that prioritize objectivity and fairness.
4. They take an empirical approach to both applied research and basic research.
5. Psychologist make their work public.
Empiricism (also referred to as the empirical method or empirical research): involves using evidence
from the senses (sight, hearing, touch) or from instruments that assist the senses (such as
thermometers, timers, photographs, weight scales and questionnaires) as the basis for conclusions
“To be an empirist, you must also guard against common biases when you look at the data, by asking
yourself the question: Compared to what?”
The cupboard theory: the mother is valuable to a baby mammal because she is a source of food
The contact comfort theory (Harry Harlow): babies are attached to heir mothers because of the
comfort of their warm, fuzzy fur
Theory: is a set of statements -as simple as possible- that describes general principles about how
variables relate to one another.
Hypothesis: or prediction, is stated in terms of the study design
Data: are a set of observation
Preregistered: ideally hypotheses are preregisterd, that is after the study is designed but before
collecting any data, the researcher states publicly what the study’s outcome is expected tob e
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,Studies don’t prove, because that can lead to gneralizations about phenomena they have not
observed study’s data support or are consistent with a theory
Replication: means the study is conducted again to test whether the result is consistent
Weight of the evidence: the collection of studies, including replication, of the same theory
Falsifiability: the capacity for some proposition, statement, theory or hypothesis to be proven wrong
Sociologist Robert Merton (1942) identified four norms that scientist attempt to follow
Merton’s Scientific Norms
NAME DEFINITION INTERPRETATION AND APPLICATION
Universalism Scientific claims are Even a student can do science – you don’t
evaluated according to their need an advanced degree or research
merit, independent of the position.
reseacher’s credentials or
reputation. The same
preestablished criteria apply
to all scientists and all
research.
Commuality Scientific knowledge is Scientists should transparently and freely
created by a community and share the results of their work with other
its findings belong to the scientists and the public.
community.
Disinterestednes Scientists strive to discover Scientists should not be personally invested in
s the truth, whatever it is; whether their hypotheses are supported by
they are not swayed by the data. Scientists do not spin the story;
conviction, idealism, politics instead, they accept what the data tell them.
or profit. In addition, a scientist’s own beliefs, income,
or prestige should not bias their interpretation
or reporting of results.
Organized Scientists question Scientists accept almost nothing at face value.
Skepticism everything, including their Nothing iss sacred – they always ask to see the
own theories, widely evidence.
accepted ideas, and “ancient
wisdom”.
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,Self-correcting: that is, science discovers its own mistaken theories and corrects them.
Applied research: is done with a practical problem in mind and the researchers conduct their work in
a local, real-world context, for example testing if a new method of teaching language arts is working
better than the former one
Basic research: to enhance the general body of knowledge rather than to adress a specific, practical
problem, for example understanding the structure of the visual system, the knowlegde basis
researches generate may be applied to real-world issues later on
Translational research: is the use of lessons from basic research to develop and test applications to
health care, psychotherapy, or other forms of treatment and intervention, it represents a dynamic
bridge from basic to applied research, for example basic research on the biochemistry of cell
membranes might be translated into a new drug from schizophrenia.
Journal: a collection of peer-reviewed articles, usually come out every month and contain articless
written by various researchers, peer reviewers are supposed to ensure that he articles published in
scientific journals contain important, well-done studies, publication thus helps make science self-
correcting
Journalism: is a secondhand report about the research, written by journalists or laypeople, the
jornalist turns the research into a news story by summarizing it for a popular audience, giving it an
interesting headline and using nontechnical terms
Chapter 2 Sources of Information: Why Research Is Best
and How to Find It
One of the most important reasons not to base are beliefs on are own personal experience is the lack
of a comperison group experience doesn’t have a comparison group
Comparison group: enables us to compare what would happen both with and without the thing we
are interested in
Confound (can also mean confused): occurs when you think one thing caused an outcome but in fact
other things changed, too, so you are confused about what the cause really was
Confederate: an actor playing a specific role for the experimenter
Probalilistic: results of behavioral research are probabilistic, which means that its findings do not
explain all cases all of the time, instead the conclusions of research are meant to explain a certain
proportion (preferably a high proportion) of the possible cases
Five ways in which intuition is biased
1. One example of abias in our thinking is accepting a conclusion just because it makes sense or
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, feels natural.
2. Another bias in thinking is the availability heuristic, which states that things that pop up easily in
our mind tend to guide our thinking, our attention can be inordinately drawn to certain instances,
leading to overestimation.
3. Present/present bias reflects our failure to consider appropriate comparison groups, we tend to
focus only on experiences that fall in the present/present cell and ignore “absent” cells.
4. Confirmation bias the tendency to look only at information that agrees with what we want to
believe in.
5. Bias blind spot the belief that we are unlikely to fall prey to the other biases previously described,
it makes us trust our faulty reasoning and it can make it difficult for us to initiate the scientific theory-
data cycle, because we say “I already know its correct, I don’t need to test this!”
Most often research results are published as articles in scholarly journals, single chapters within
edited books (collection of chapters on a common topic, each chapter is written by a different
contributor) and full-length scholarly books.
Empirical journal articles: report, for the first time, the results of an (empirical) research study,
containing details about the study’s method, the statistical tests used and the results of the study
Review journal articles: summarize and integrate all the published studies that have been done in
one research area
Meta-analysis: a quantitative technique which combines the results of many studies and gives a
number that summarizes the magnitude, or the effect size, of a relationship
Paywalled (or subscription only): articles where you have to pay for or have a subscription to
Open access: articles that are available for free to the general public
Standard format of most empirical journal articles
1. Abstract: a concise summary of the article
2. Introduction: the first section of regular text and the first paragraphs typically explain the topic of
the study
3. Method: explains in detail how the researchers conducted their study
4. Results: describes the quantitative and, as relevant, qualitative results of the study
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