Chapter Two

Smith/Davis (c) 2005 Prentice Hall

Chapter Two

Research Ideas and Hypotheses

PowerPoint Presentation created by Dr. Susan R. BurnsMorningside College


The Research Idea

You find a research idea when you find a gap in the current knowledge or an unanswered question that interests you.


Characteristics of Good Research Ideas

The most important characteristic of a good research idea is that it is testable.

A second characteristic of the good research idea is that your chances for success are increased when your view of nature approximates reality as closely as possible. When reality is approximated there is a good likelihood of success.


Psychological Detective

Other than by direct trial-and-error investigation, how can we determine the relevant factors in our chosen research area?– Examining past research is your best bet.


Sources of Research Ideas

Nonsystematic Sources – Include those occurrences that give us the illusion

that a research idea has dropped out of the sky.– Inspiration – ideas that pop into one’s mind from

(seemingly) nowhere. Inspiration usually comes more easily after one has been working on a particular problem for some time.

– Serendipity – refers to those situations where we look for one phenomenon but find another.



Nonsystematic Sources– Everyday Occurrences – the people and/or

situations one encounters daily provide some of the best possibilities for research.

– For example, B.F. Skinner and his wife, upon deciding to have another child and deciding how to meet the essential need of warmth for that child developed the idea of the Air Crib.




Systematic Sources – Consist of research ideas from systematic

sources are carefully organized and logically thought out.



Systematic Sources – – Past Research – a careful survey of the research done

in a specific area will highlight any knowledge gaps or unanswered questions in that area.

A failure to replicate a previous finding raises additional questions that only continued research will be able to answer.

– Theory – the guidance function of a theory provides an endless panorama of projects for researchers who take the time and trouble to master the theory and understand its implications.

– Classroom Lectures – lectures often include a systematic review of the relevant literature on a particular topic and as such are a good source of research ideas.



Unlike this poor fellow, psychologists find potential research ideas all around them!


Developing a Research Question

Regardless of the source of your research idea, your first goal should be to turn it into a question.


Surveying the Psychological Literature

Selection of Index terms

– Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms – is a collection of index terms taken from abstracts of all published psychological research.



Manual Searches of the Literature – if your school does not subscribe to any electronic research databases you will have to do a manual literature search.– Psychological Abstracts – is a monthly journal

that provides essentially the same information that a PsycINFO search. Write down the relevant article references and locate the journal(s) in the library.



Computerized Searches of the Literature – Your next step is to familiarize yourself with the computerized research databases (such as PsycINFO) available at your school. Enter your index terms into the search box of the database.



Be sure to be careful when doing a computerize search using the Internet. The authors offer criteria for evaluating internet sites.



Obtaining the Relevant Publications – you need to assemble all of your original source materials in one place.

– Interlibrary loan – if your library does not have the relevant journals or books, you can request them through interlibrary loan. There is sometimes a small fee for this service and the amount of time it takes to get your materials will vary.

– Requests for reprints – you can write or e-mail the author of a journal article directly and ask for a copy of the article (reprint). Many colleges and universities have searchable faculty e-mail databases. This makes it very easy to e-mail the author and ask for a reprint.



Integrating the results of the Literature Search

– This is the process of making sense of the materials you have assembled.

– The authors recommend taking notes on the different sections of information from each article you have read. These notes should fit on one side of a sheet of paper.




Formulating the Research Hypothesis

A research hypothesis is simply a formal statement of your research question, taking into account what you learned from searching the literature.

The research or experimental hypothesis is our prediction about the relation that exists between the independent variable that we are going to manipulate and the dependent variable that we will record.


Characteristics of the Research Hypothesis

Types of Statements – – Synthetic Statements – are those statements that

can be either true of false (e.g. “Abused children have lower self-esteem”).

– Analytic Statements – are those statements that are always true (e.g. I am making an “A” or I am not making an “A”).

– Contradictory Statements – are those statements that are always false (e.g. I am making an “A” and I am not making an “A”).



General Implication Form – You must be able to state (or restate) the

research hypothesis in general implication (“if…then”) form.

– The “if” portion of such statements refers to the independent variable manipulation(s) that we are going to make, whereas the “then” portion of the statement refers to the dependent variable changes we expect to observe.



Principle of falsifiability – When an experimental hypothesis is stated in

general implication form, it is possible that a result is true (supported by the results of the study) or false (not supported by the results of the study).



Types of Reasoning– Inductive Logic – involves reasoning from specific

cases to general principles. Inductive logic is the process that is involved in the construction of theories.

– Deductive Logic – involves reasoning from general principles to specific conclusions or predictions.


Relation Between Deductive and Inductive Reasoning


A New View of Hypothesis Testing

Proctor and Capaldi (2001) have presented a new view of hypothesis testing that is based on the premise that research methodology is not a static finished process; it is constantly in a state of change and flux.

Principles may be rejected or modified. The data that researchers gather really

determine the methods that are accepted and continued to be used.



Several factors can determine what the researcher does when an experimental hypothesis is confirmed (disconfirmed).

For example, the importance of the research problem may determine if a researcher sticks with the problem, even if a specific hypothesis is disconfirmed.

Likewise, the promise of the research program to answer theoretical questions may determine if that research program flourishes.



Early in the developmental stages of a theory, hypothesis testing actually may be harmful.

Because the researchers do not know all of the relevant variables (IVs, DVs, and especially extraneous variables), it may be very easy to disconfirm an experimental hypothesis and thereby disconfirm the theory.

Proctor and Capaldi (2001) also argue that researchers are never really able to achieve a clear-cut test of a hypothesis because no hypothesis is every tested in complete isolation; we are always testing other things at the same time.



Proctor and Capaldi (2001) suggest that researchers should use more inductive logic when a research area is new, because there is a high probability of disconfirming hypotheses when they might be true.

There suggestion would be to let the data be your guide.



Directional versus Nondirectional Research Hypotheses– Directional Hypotheses – specifies the outcome of

the experiment.– Nondirectional Hypotheses – does not predict the

exact directional outcome of an experiment, but only that the groups we are testing will differ.

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