Research Methods For The Behavioural Sciences

For years, we have watched students come into the psychology research methods course with a fundamental fear of science. Somewhere, these students seem to have developed the idea that psychology is interesting and fun, but science is tedious and difficult. Many students even resent the fact that they have to take a research methods course: "After all, I want to be a psychologist, not a scientist." As the semester progresses, however, most of these students begin to lose their fears, and many of them actually begin to enjoy the course. Much of this change in attitude is based on a realization that science is simply the technique that psychologists use to gather information and to answer questions. As long as the questions are interesting, then the task of answering them should also be interesting.When people watch a magician do an amazing trick, the common response is to ask, "How was that done?" In the same way, when you learn something interesting about human behavior, you ought to ask, "How do they know that?" The answer is that most of the existing knowledge in the behavioral sciences was gathered using scientific research methods. If you are really curious about human behavior, then you should also be curious about the process of studying human behavior.This textbook is developed from years of teaching research methods.During that time, we tried various examples or explanations in the classroom and observed student response. Over the years, the course evolved into a less intimidating and more interesting approach that is highly effective in getting students interested in research. Our students have been very helpful in this evolutionary process. Their feedback has directed our progress through the development of the research methods course and the writing of this book. In many respects, they have been our teachers.