What Makes Psychology Scientific?

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Science is the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment. (Science(2017) https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/science) Components of scientific knowledge are both Theory and Data. If all we have is a theory and no data to back it up then all we have is speculation. If you have data and no theory we have nothing but senseless information. (T.L.Brink (2011) what makes psychology scientific? https://canvas.instructure.com ) Because of this, the scientific method is a crucial part of psychology, as it analyses and investigates human behaviour the study of; past, controlled and natural observations of the present …show more content…

This is the first step of the scientific method, which is a problem that has been identified; the next step would be to gather as much relevant data on the situation and could come in the form of case studies or sampling, surveys, interviews, naturalistic observations and lab, field and true experiments. This formulates a hypothesis using the data collected; a small pilot study would then be used to check your study is feasible before a long and full investigation. The last and most important step which is testing and modifying the hypothesis as this is where your hypothesis is proven true or false and a review of the data to find a new hypothesis till the true answer is revealed. While conducting these experiments three variables must be used they are Dependant variable, which is tested and measured, independent variable which is manipulated to test the effects on the dependant variable and the extraneous variable which can cause errors or challenges.(Kendra Cherry(2016)What

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