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1669 results in Psychology research methods and statistics

Page 47 of 84

The Developmental Scientist's Companion
  • Improving Research Methodology and Achieving Professional Success
  • J. Steven Reznick
  • Published online:
    04 May 2017
    Print publication:
    03 April 2017
  • Written by one of developmental science's foremost methodologists, The Developmental Scientist's Companion provides an engaging and accessible guide to the scientific techniques that have been devised to investigate human development. Adopting an original approach to what can be a dry yet essential topic, Reznick enlivens his coverage of key issues in developmental methodology - measuring psychological phenomena, assessing reliability and validity, experimental design, interviews and surveys, data collection and analysis and interpreting research results - with discussion of his own experiences of those various techniques, gained over a substantial research career. The Companion concludes with practical tips for improving the field and navigating a path to professional success. Reznick's 'behind-the-scenes' view of empirical research and career progression, told with wit, wisdom and insight, is essential reading for students and young researchers launching their careers in developmental science.

  • Introduction

  • Robert J. Sternberg, Cornell University, New York, Karin Sternberg, Cornell University, New York
  • Book:
    The Psychologist's Companion for Undergraduates
    Published online:
    12 August 2019
    Print publication:
    11 January 2017, pp 1-4

  • Summary

    Most students and even faculty in psychology and related disciplines receive little or no formal training in how to communicate effectively. Do students learn the writing techniques for psychology on their own? Our experience in reading psychology papers, listening to student talks, and viewing student posters suggests that often they do not. Moreover, this experience is shared by other psychology professors and by professors in other related disciplines, as well.

    The purpose of this book is to provide the basic information that students and professionals alike need to communicate well and succeed in psychology and related disciplines. This information is contained in 15 chapters. Although the intent is that you read the chapters in the order in which they are presented, they are for the most part self-contained and hence can be read in almost any sequence.

    Chapter 1 is on getting started. It discusses how you can learn about and communicate effectively in psychology and related fields. It contains tips for ensuring that you will make the very best use possible of your college experiences in psychology and related fields.

    Chapter 2 presents and discusses eight common misconceptions that students hold about psychology papers. We have found that many of these misconceptions are reinforced rather than extinguished by conventional academic training. Most students come to believe, for example, that papers, and especially journal articles, are and should be autobiographical – that the logical development of ideas in a psychology paper reflects their historical development in the psychologist's head. Accepting this notion as a presupposition, students often believe that authors of journal articles can plan their research and predict their findings well in advance, often down to the last detail. Readers will know better after finishing Chapter 2.

    One can write good papers only when one has good ideas that constitute the basis for the papers. Chapter 3 suggests alternative ways to generate ideas for papers. Because not all ideas are good ideas, the latter part of the chapter provides guidelines to decide which ideas are good ones that should be pursued. Finally, the chapter also gives tips on how to sell one's ideas to others.

  • 14 - Preparing a Poster Presentation

  • from Part IV - Presenting Yourself to Others
  • Robert J. Sternberg, Cornell University, New York, Karin Sternberg, Cornell University, New York
  • Book:
    The Psychologist's Companion for Undergraduates
    Published online:
    12 August 2019
    Print publication:
    11 January 2017, pp 275-281

  • Summary

    At some time or other, you may find yourself having to prepare a poster presentation. Posters are an excellent way of conveying a lot of information in a concise, efficient, and compelling form. They are especially useful for early-career scientists to learn how to communicate effectively and also to meet colleagues from other institutions.

    A poster generally should include the following elements:

    ■ Title

    You want a title to be descriptive of what you have done but also compelling. Which poster would you rather read: “Effects of Professors’ Level of Interestingness on Students’ Attention During Class” or “Boring Professors Really Do Put Students to Sleep”? Try to formulate a title that conveys your main message and at the same time will capture people's attention.

    ■ Authors and institutional affiliations

    List all authors and their institutional affiliations. Make sure not to omit anyone who has done substantial scientific work on the project that gave rise to the poster.

    ■ Abstract

    In the abstract, you should state the big question, how you addressed it, what you found, and what it means. Abstracts, especially in posters, need to be concise and to the point.

    ■ Background/literature review

    In a poster, you do not have a lot of space for literature review. Therefore, limit the review to previous research directly relevant to your own research. Make sure you do not omit any citations that are crucial to the theory or hypotheses underlying your research.

    ■ Research question(s)

    State directly the question (or questions) you are asking in your research. Beyond that, say something about why the research question is important both to science and to the person reading your poster. Why should the person attending a poster presentation read your poster when there are so many other posters to read?

    ■ Methods

    Specify who your subjects were, what materials you used, what the design of your study was, and what your procedure was. It often helps to give an example of any materials that were central to your study.

  • 5 - Writing a Literature Review

  • from Part I - Planning and Formulating Papers
  • Robert J. Sternberg, Cornell University, New York, Karin Sternberg, Cornell University, New York
  • Book:
    The Psychologist's Companion for Undergraduates
    Published online:
    12 August 2019
    Print publication:
    11 January 2017, pp 66-87

  • Summary

    Most undergraduate research papers, and many graduate and professional research papers as well, are based on literature reviews. The aims of a literature review are different from those of an empirical research paper, and hence the skills required differ somewhat as well. The goals of literature reviews are the following (American Psychological Association, 2009):

  • 1. to define and clarify problems

  • 2. to inform the reader about a subject by summarizing and evaluating studies

  • 3. to identify inconsistencies, gaps, contradictions, and relationships in the literature

  • 4. to suggest future steps and approaches to solve the issues identified.

    • There are five kinds of literature reviews that can be distinguished on the basis of the aim of the review. Reviews can strive to (a) generate new knowledge, (b) test theories, (c) integrate theories, (d) develop a new theory, or (e) integrate existing knowledge.

    If you plan to submit your literature review to a journal and have to decide where to submit it, you may want to read some literature reviews that have been published in the journals you are considering to find out whether your paper is a good fit to the journal. Generally, the probability of an article being accepted is highest when you develop new knowledge, develop a new theory, or integrate several theories (instead of just reviewing and summarizing the literature on a particular topic) (Eisenberg, 2000). In general, the best literature reviews do not merely summarize literature; they also create new knowledge by placing the literature into a new framework or at least seeing the literature in a new way.

    The literature review can proceed smoothly if you follow a sequence of simple steps:

  • 1. Decide on a topic for a paper.

  • 2. Organize and search the literature.

  • 3. Prepare an outline.

  • 4. Write the paper.

  • 5. Evaluate the paper yourself and seek others’ feedback on it.

    • DECIDING ON A TOPIC FOR A PAPER

    Your first task is to decide on a topic for a paper. This is, in a sense, the most important task because the paper can be no better than the topic.

  • 1 - Getting Started

  • from Part I - Planning and Formulating Papers
  • Robert J. Sternberg, Cornell University, New York, Karin Sternberg, Cornell University, New York
  • Book:
    The Psychologist's Companion for Undergraduates
    Published online:
    12 August 2019
    Print publication:
    11 January 2017, pp 7-9

  • Summary

    Bob, the senior author of this book, always thought of himself as a reasonably good communicator. When he started graduate school, he was proud of the papers he had written as an undergraduate. As a new graduate student, he thought he would get an edge in with his new graduate adviser by showing the adviser (Professor Gordon Bower at Stanford) his favorite paper he had written as an undergraduate. He asked Professor Bower to give him comments on the paper, figuring that Bower would be impressed that he had a terrific new student to advise.

    Bower handed him back the paper a couple of weeks later. Bower said that he had crossed out the parts of the paper that he didn't think added much. Unfortunately, Bower had crossed out most of the paper. The experience was not the start to his graduate career that Bob had been hoping for. Bob realized that his communication skills were not what he thought they were.

    Many students go through college never learning, in any reasonably formal way, how to communicate, at least in psychology and related disciplines. They receive no explicit instruction in how to write a paper, how to give a talk, or how to create a poster. (When Bob gave his first talk in graduate school, one of the senior professors fell asleep during the talk.) The purpose of this book is to give you the guidance you need to be effective in communication and to attain professional success.

    In this chapter, we would like to help you get started. To get started, you need just five basic tips. Once you master these tips, you are ready to read the rest of the book and, more importantly, to get going in doing all the writing and speaking you need to do to achieve success.

  • 3 - How to Generate, Evaluate, and Present Your Ideas for Research and Papers

  • from Part I - Planning and Formulating Papers
  • Robert J. Sternberg, Cornell University, New York, Karin Sternberg, Cornell University, New York
  • Book:
    The Psychologist's Companion for Undergraduates
    Published online:
    12 August 2019
    Print publication:
    11 January 2017, pp 26-49

  • Summary

    There is no one foolproof way of getting ideas for papers. You have to find the ways that work for you. In the first part of this chapter, we present different ways in which you can develop ideas for your research projects. Of course, it is not enough to have ideas. To be a successful researcher, you also need the ability to evaluate your ideas and find out whether they are good ones. You do not want to waste your time on bad ideas. The second part of this chapter deals with the evaluation of your ideas. And once you have come to the conclusion that yours is a wonderful idea, it will be important for you to present and persuade others of the value of your idea. How do you convince others that your planned study is one that is worthwhile to conduct? Especially creative ideas are often hard to sell. Therefore, the third part of this chapter shows you some ways to sell your ideas.

    GENERATING IDEAS

    Generating Ideas by Consulting with Others

    In many colleges and universities, the faculty is among the most underutilized of resources. In Bob's first semester of teaching at Yale, he set aside three hours each week for office hours. He encouraged – sometimes he practically begged – students to come see him during those hours for advice on papers, projects, and the like. He left his door wide open to encourage students to enter. For the most part, though, he sat staring at the walls or at the people scurrying by (but not in) the door. He also encouraged students to make individual appointments if they were unable to see him during his prearranged hours, but, for the most part, students also failed to take him up on this offer. Later, business picked up, although much more so among graduate than among undergraduate students. (Bob is now older; he is at Cornell; and he has the same experience. On most days, no one comes to his office hours.)

    Why are students are so timid in approaching faculty? Sometimes students try once, are unsuccessful in reaching the faculty member, and give up. Sometimes they don't try at all.

Page 47 of 84