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Research Methods and General Principles of Psychological Research

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Methods and General Principles in Psychological Research
Kavitha Kathleen Devaser
Raffles Institute of Higher Education

Abstract

In psychology, research is vital for the progression and further understanding of this field. Psychological research includes the study of behavior for use in a scientific or academic setting. There are two types of research, qualitative research and quantitative research. To conduct research, there are numerous general principles of psychology and methods in which has to be considered for research to be good with strong supporting evidence. General principles of psychology include operational definitions, population samples and eliminating the influence of expectations. There are several research methods, such as experiments, naturalistic observation, surveys, case histories, and correlational studies as well as ethical considerations in research. Researchers normally draw conclusions for a larger population using a sample. There are four major types of population samples; convenience samples, representative samples, random samples and cross cultural samples. Certain biases are present during research, researcher bias and participant bias. These biases may sway the findings of the experiment. Ethical guidelines must be taken into consideration during research; both human and nonhuman experimentation has guidelines set by the APA. When data is collected, it has to be interpreted visually. Statistics deals with the collection, analysis, interpretation and presentation of numerical data. It aids in the summarizing of data and allows inferences or descriptions to be made.

Psychological research includes the study of behavior for use in a scientific and academic setting, and contains various areas such as abnormal psychology, cognitive psychology, biological psychology, developmental psychology, personality psychology, social

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