Sample Undergraduate Psychology Essay

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Abstract

The experiment is valid only when there are results of the biased, independent variable. Researchers normally balance a controlled laboratory atmosphere with a natural environment. The more natural the experimental scenario, the harder external variables are regulated. Randomised trial results contribute to novel approaches and conclusions to be evaluated and studied in the field.

Introduction

Scientists explain and understand the workings of the world around them by developing theories that produce testable and falsifiable hypotheses. Theories that stand for research are preserved and refined, while theories that are not accepted or updated are kept. This helps researchers to discern evidence from mere beliefs. The availability of good knowledge by analysis supports wise decision-making in our public and personal lives. In this section, you can see how scientists research and appreciate activities using the scientific method.

Scientific analysis is a vital method to manage our complicated world effectively. Without it, we will have to rely on instincts, the legitimacy of other people, and pure chance alone. While all of us are sure that we can decipher and communicate with the universe around us, history is full of reminders of how mistaken we may be because we do not realise that there needs to be proof to back up statements.

At different points in the past, we must have been confident that the sun rotated around a flat land, that the continents of the universe did not move, and that the mental disorder was caused by possession (Figure 1). By rigorous scientific analysis, we devote ourselves to our preconceived conceptions and superstitions and obtain an empirical view of ourselves and our environment.

Psychologists emphasise actions and the underlying emotional (mental) and physiological (body) mechanisms. The distinguishing feature of the empirical study is that data confirms an argument, compared to other approaches that people use to explain the actions of others, including insight and personal experiences. Scientific understanding is empirical: it is founded on factual, observable facts, which, irrespective of who is studying, can be found again and again.

The mind is not measurable, although actions. We can see the action while someone is crying. It is more difficult to ascertain the cause of the behaviour. Are people weeping because they are unhappy, painful, or happy? Often we can learn why someone reacts by only posing a question, such as, “Why cry? “There are cases where someone is uncomfortable or unable to respond frankly to the question or cannot answer it.

For one, children cannot explain why they weep. The psychologist must then be imaginative to find ways to better explain the behaviour under certain circumstances. This module discusses the generation of scientific knowledge and the significance of knowledge in making choices in our own lives and within the public domain.

Methods of Scientific Research

The experimental method provides psychology with a systematic means to evaluate theory, draw upon mind hypotheses, and obtain insight into the mind. The empirical method provides an analytical methodology for scientific research, which contributes to unbiased world interpretations and strengthens knowledge. Sir Francis Bacon (1561–162 6) first outlined the empirical method that made it possible for many scientific disciplines to solve logical and rational problems.

Field Research

Field research is real-life or natural environment research. They are more likely to exploit a factor under analysis to observe, evaluate, and explain what is present. The study environment reflects ordinary conditions, which retain the naturalness of the environment. Field study subjects may or may not be aware that they are being observed. On the other hand, Regulated laboratory testing is carried out in a research area designed especially for research.

Laboratory Research

Study in laboratories is also defined as closely regulated research, In which the investigator manipulates the specific research element to determine if such manipulation induces changes in the subject. Themes in laboratory analysis may be more carefully chosen and put into environments and are typically considered to engage in a sample.

The analysis element is the variable that a researcher manipulates, known as the experimental or independent variable. The shift calculation is called the measurement criteria. The dependent variable is often named because the adjustment possibly depends on the investigator’s modification of the experimental variable.

The usefulness of Scientific Methods

Field experiments are more likely than a laboratory to be descriptive, evolving, correlational, and survey. The biggest benefit of the field study is that they are generalised to real-life circumstances since they reflect more conditions and ecosystems in their natural habitat. Notice that this advantage can be inaccurate. It can be very difficult to determine the generalizability of this analysis due to the lack of monitoring and the hard of correctly characterising the situation in the region. The code of ethics will also influence where the research is located.

Researchers also favour lab designs in the field due to informed consent issues and participants’ privacy problems. Due to better regulation than naturalistic environments by the researchers in general in a laboratory setting, laboratory test experiments are more likely to be a true experimental design.

The advantage of laboratory experiments is those irrelevant variables are more regulated, which may otherwise affect outcomes and become simpler testing situational hints. If all foreign factors are regulated effectively, the observed improvement in the subjects is thought to derive from the manipulated variable.

This approach is similar to creating a connection between cause and effect. However, when looking at such a partnership, care should be taken. There are still risks that the outside impact is unregulated, and the effects are probably caused by accident. The reproducibility is another benefit of lab testing. Cleanly managed and recorded environmental factors. As in every other form of study, in laboratory research, drawbacks can occur. It can be an artificial world that can influence behaviour, thereby modifying the outcomes of subjects.

Ethical issues raised by Psychological Research

Any experiment involving human beings shall be regulated by detailed, stringent rules to preclude damage from the experiment. Any federally funded research organisation, including human subjects, must access an institutional oversight panel (IRB). The IRB is an individual committee mostly made up of executive staff, scholars, and university community members (Figure 1).

The IRB’s goal is to evaluate research ideas concerning individuals. In whatever experiment it accepts, an IRB organisation wants multiple components. Firstly, before engaging in the trial, each subject must sign an informed consent form. An informed consent form defines what participants can expect during the evaluation, including likely risks and consequences of testing.

It also helps students to be conscious that their attendance is purely optional and can be interrupted at any time without any cost. Also, informed consent assures the absolute protection of all data gathered during the experiment. Although the informed acceptance form must be as truthful as possible in explaining precisely what participants are doing, deceit may often be required to prevent the study outcomes from being compromised by participants’ understanding of the exact test issue.

Disappointment requires intentionally misleading trial subjects to protect the experiment’s credibility, but not to the degree that disappointment may be deemed risky. For example, we can use misappreciation in descending the experiment to avoid the information impacting the participants’ answers if we are curious to see how their clothing influences our perception of someone.

In such cases of dissatisfaction, participants must be given an in-depth research briefing with full, truthful information about the study’s intent, how the data gathered could be used, why disappointment had to be used, and how to gain more data on the study.

Evaluation of the Scientific Approaches Application

Due to better regulation than naturalistic environments by the researchers in general in a laboratory setting, laboratory test experiments are more likely to be a true experimental design. The advantages of laboratory experiments are better control over factors unrelated to the outcome and, therefore, a stronger indicator of behaviour.

Some changes detected in subjects are expected to be due to the attribute which has been manipulated if all external factors can be managed effectively. This approach is similar to creating a connection between cause and effect. However, when approaching such a partnership, care should be taken.

There are still risks that the outside impact is unregulated, and the effects are probably caused by accident. Their reproducibility is another advantage of lab testing. Cleanly managed and recorded environmental factors. As in every other form of study, in laboratory research, drawbacks can occur. It may be an artificial environment that may change how participants respond and thereby modify outcomes.

Ethical Issue (Dig Deeper: Ethics and the Tuskegee Syphilis Study)

The ethical standards for science today, sadly, have not always been applied in the past. The army was mobilised to participate in a US test in 1932, a bad, agricultural, black, and male sharecropper from Tuskegee, Alabama. Public Health Service to research black man syphilis (Figure 2).

Six hundred men decided to enrol in the study in exchange for free medical treatment, food, and funeral insurance. Half of the men screened for syphilis positively and became in the trial team (given that the researchers could not randomly assign participants to groups, this represents a quasi-experiment).

In the test community, the majority are syphilis-free males. However, people who screened for syphilis positively have never been told that they have the disorder. Though syphilis had not been treated at the outset of the research, penicillin was identified as a successful cure in 1947.

However, the participants in this study were not offered any penicillin, and if participants continued their studies, they would not be permitted to obtain care in any other hospital. For 40 years, many participants transmitted syphilis unwittingly to their spouses (and their children born to women after that) and ultimately died because they had not undergone medication for the disorder. This research was stopped in 1972 after the national press noticed the trial.

Conclusion

Any unregulated external variables influencing the dependent variable’s output threaten the legitimacy of an experiment, whether performed in a field or controlled laboratory setting. An experiment is true when only the manipulated independent variable shows effects and when they are generalisable in conditions outside the experimental environment.

The concepts of internal validity and external validity are both referred to. Internal validation directly results from manipulating the independent variable that the observed deviations from the dependent variable. Very strict laboratory regulation is required to optimise internal validity, reducing the study to non-laboratory conditions.

Meanwhile, the more normal the experimental situation becomes, the tougher foreign variables to be controlled. Researchers are typically balanced between a regulated laboratory setting and a natural environment for the environment. This helps the researcher to have ample control to maintain proper internal validation while preserving the realism required to be generalised.

The most effective approach to science typically involves laboratory and field research. New methods and conclusions to be tested and studied in the field are created from the effects of controlled experiments. Conversely, field findings produce novel theories for controlled trials to be evaluated.

Bibliography

Aziz , H. . A., 2017. Comparison between Field Research and Controlled Laboratory Research.

LH, B., B, E., K, J. & L., 2016. From Research Question to Conducting a Randomized Controlled Trial on Continuous Antibiotic Prophylaxis in Prenatal Hydronephrosis: A Rational Stepwise Process… Frontiers in Pediatrics, p. 4.

P, F., B, P., F , F. & B., 2015. Research questions, hypotheses and objectives… Can J Surg 53 .

S, H., S, C. & W, B., 2017. Designing clinical research. 3rd ed. Philadelphia (PA): Lippincott.

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