Research Methods Case Scenario

Due: Week Three

Points: 50

Chapter 1 includes a section on Research Methods in Psychology. Psychologists use a variety of research methods to study human mental processes and behavior. Regardless of the method used, they all follow a general “scientific method.” Review the following online resources for more information on the scientific method, as well as the different types of research methods covered in the reading.

Now that you have reviewed applicable concepts related to research methods in psychology and the scientific method, review the following scenario and address the items below.

Research Scenario: An elementary school wants to study reading skills and improvement trends within their student population. They have several research questions they want to explore including:

How much do reading scores change from the beginning of the school year to the end of the school year?
Do males and females have similar reading scores or different reading scores?
How do the factors of age, number of siblings, and IQ relate to reading scores?
Which activities and interventions help students with lower reading scores significantly increase their reading scores?

Requirements: Respond to a-d below, writing to purpose, about 2 pages.

(a) Put yourself in the role of the researcher who is assisting the school in addressing some of their questions. Select only one of the research questions above. Describe how the research question you chose could be studied using the steps of the scientific method.

(b) Based on the one research question that you selected above in (a), what hypothesis would you make? (i.e. What do you think the answer to the question might be?)

(c) Select two research methods covered in the Chapter 1 reading assignment that would help you collect the data and information you would need to test the hypothesis you selected from the research scenario above in (a). Explain why and how these research methods will help. What are the pros and cons of the methods you selected?

(d) Review the ethical issues covered in the Chapter 1 reading assignment. Discuss ethical issues you would need to consider if you were conducting the study described in the research scenario above. (Ethical issues could be directly related to the nature of the topic, and/or more general issues and concerns related to protecting child participants.)