The Scientific Method

1010 Words3 Pages

Psychologists propose explanations for human behaviour without carrying out any prior research first.
While the everyday judgements we make about human behaviour are subjective and anecdotal, researchers use the scientific method to study psychology in an objective and systematic way.
The scientific method is used by Psychologists to conduct their research. It is a systematised way of making observations, collecting data, shaping theories, analysing predictions, and forming results. In order to depict and measure behaviour, researchers make observations.
After constantly observing certain events, researchers form a theory that explains these observations. A theory is a description that classifies individual pieces of information in a lucid …show more content…

If we put the hypothesis to the statistical test and it gives us a null hypothesis. If there is a significant difference between the null hypothesis and the hypothesis, a conclusion must be determined to see if the hypothesis is supported or not.
Many scientists have claimed that there is no such thing as scientific method. For instance, a Nobel laureate in medicine, Sir Peter Medawar, pondered this question: “What methods of enquiry apply with equal efficacy to atoms and stars and genes? What is ‘The Scientific Method’?”. He concluded that “I very much doubt whether a methodology based on the intellectual practices of physicists and biologists (supposing that methodology to be sound) would be of any great use to sociologists” (Medawar, 1969:8,13).
Science is centred around observation and measurement, and the majority of research involves some type of practical experimentation.
The scientific method uses some type of measurement to analyse results, feeding these findings back into theories. There are two ways of acquiring data, through measurement which is referred to as quantitative measurements, and through observation which is stated as qualitative

Open Document