UNIT OBJECTIVES
Understand why psychological research is important.
Explain the process of correlation.
Differentiate between experiments and quasi-experiments.
Understand the goals of factor analysis.
WHY DO WE PERFORM RESEARCH?
Students of psychology, including adolescent psychology, often ask why they must learn about the process of research? Frequently people interested in counseling, clinical, or the more applied areas of psychology are particularly bothered. They believe that they possess excellent talent, maybe “great people skills.” Shouldn’t this be where their efforts should be pointed?
Students, especially those new to the field, sometimes think that learning research skills is unnecessary. They believe that intuition, observations, and growing experiences will be sufficient. They also question the time and effort put into research. It is not needed, they think, especially for themselves. However, history proves that this view has been repeatedly incorrect.
No one can genuinely understand psychology without understanding psychological research. No one can understand the behavioral sciences without understanding research. Ultimately, no one can be an effective helper without understanding research and the research process.
Like many other disciplines, psychology has a history of mistakes where well-meaning people used observation and common sense. They often made claims with the best of intentions. Results were sometimes correct, but too often, they were wrong. Research allows us to correct our mistakes.
Even people with research training often made serious errors that continue to have implications for clients and society. One example is mistakes that were made about the causes and the appropriate treatment of autism. Autism is a complex disorder that affects about 3% of children. It can cause developmental problems. These can include slowed speech and long-term social difficulties. People believed that parenting problems, notably “bad mothering,” caused this disorder. However, there was no good evidence for this. It just fit into theories at the time and seemed true.
Once researchers systematically looked for the causes of autism, they found that parenting practices had nothing to do with this disorder. Research has now shown that autism is due to biological factors, including those present early in life. It is independent of parenting styles. Parents do not cause autism, not even unconsciously, as some theorists believed. Nor is there reliable data that it is caused by vaccines.
Adequate research could have helped provide more humane, perhaps even more successful treatment for children and their parents. But, unfortunately, we wasted many years because of a lack of adequate research.
THE SCIENTIFIC PROCESS
You may hear people talk about “the scientific method” as a single formula that can always be applied to any problem. That is not quite true. Science is a process of viewing the world that tries to systematically evaluate evidence.