Читать книгу Methods in Psychological Research - Annabel Ness Evans - Страница 102

Once a general research topic has been selected, a literature search is necessary to determine what research has already been conducted in the area. Various databases are available for the psychology literature. One of the most useful is PsycINFO. Review articles, books, chapters in books, edited volumes, and chapters in edited volumes are also found in the research databases. Peer-reviewed journals are the best sources of original research. Searching the literature for relevant research will be more successful if appropriate search terms are used.

Original research journal articles generally include an abstract, an introduction, a method section, a results section, and a discussion section. The purpose of the abstract is to summarize the article. There should be enough information in the abstract for the reader to decide if he or she should read the entire research article. In the introduction, there will be a description of the relevant research and a description of the specific research hypotheses of the authors. The IV and DVs are often described in the introduction as well.

The method section is typically divided into subsections such as Participants or Subjects, Materials, and Apparatus. The method section always contains a subsection called Procedure. Enough details of the procedure must be included so that researchers elsewhere could replicate the research.

In the results section, the statistical data are presented. Both descriptive and inferential statistics will be reported. Descriptive measures of central tendency, variability, and the strength of the relationship between variables will be reported. Typically, the inferential statistics follow the descriptive statistics. A lot of psychology research involves testing hypotheses. Any tests of significance that were used to assess the research hypotheses will be reported in the results section. Basic tests of significance include t tests, F tests, chi-square tests, correlation and regression tests, and so on. The authors will indicate whether or not the hypotheses they put forth in the introduction were supported by the statistical analyses.

More complex analyses that are common in the research literature include multiple regression, partial correlation, semipartial correlation, logistic regression, factor analysis, cluster analysis, structural equation modeling, and discriminant function analysis.

Although hypothesis testing is more common in psychology research, confidence interval estimation is also used. A confidence interval is a range of values with a known probability of containing a parameter.

The discussion section of a research article contains the authors’ interpretation of the statistical findings and suggestions about future research directions.

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