Research Methods in Psychology

Dennis Howitt was a Reader in Psychology at Loughborough University, chartered forensic psychologist and Fellow of the British Psychological Society, with a specific interest in the study of mass communications and the application of psychology to social issues. Duncan Cramer is an Emeritus Professor at Loughborough University with a specific interest in topics such as mental health, personality, personal relationships, organizational commitment, psychotherapy and counselling.

Contents

Guided tour

Introduction

Acknowledgements

Plan of the book

Part 1 Basics of research

Role of research in psychology
Aims and hypotheses in research
Variables, concepts and measures
Problems of generalisation and decision-making in research
Research reports
Improving a quantitative write-up
Literature search
Ethics and data management in research

Part 2 Quantitative research methods

Basic laboratory experiments
Advanced experimental designs
Placebos, experimenter effects and demand characteristics
Cross-sectional or correlational research
Longitudinal studies
Small-N and single-case experimental designs
Surveys, samples and populations
Progress in Data analysis

Part 3 Fundamentals of testing and measurement

Psychological tests
Reliability and validity
Coding data

Part 4 Qualitative research methods

Why qualitative research?
Qualitative data collection
Transcribing language data
Thematic analysis
Grounded theory
Discourse analysis
Conversation analysis
Interpretative phenomenological analysis
Evaluating qualitative research
Improving a qualitative write-up

Part 5 Final considerations for research projects



Online Internet mediated research
Developing ideas for research
Managing your research project

Glossary

References

Index