AP Psychology: Research Methods Notes
An understanding of research methods is fundamental to psychology. In the updated AP exam, more emphasis is put on these methods than ever before. Use these AP Psychology study notes to review what you’ve learned about research methods to prepare for the AP exam. Then, test your skills using our AP Psychology pop quiz.
[ READ NEXT: AP Psychology: Biological Basis of Behavior Notes ]
AP Psychology Research Methods: Key Takeaways
Review some key takeaways about research methods you should know ahead of the AP exam:
- Psychology is a science, and it is therefore based on research. Although people are often guided effectively by their intuition, sometimes it leads us astray. People have the tendency upon hearing about research findings (and many other things) to think that they knew it all along; this tendency is called hindsight bias.
- Another reason scientific research is important is that people suffer from confirmation bias and overconfidence. Confirmation bias is the tendency to pay more attention to information that supports our preexisting ideas.
- Sometimes psychologists conduct research to solve practical problems. This type of research is known as applied research because it has clear, practical applications. Other psychologists conduct basic research. Basic research explores questions that are of interest to psychologists but are not intended to have immediate, real-world applications.
- Research can also be divided into quantitative and qualitative research. Quantitative research uses numerical measures, while qualitative research typically uses more complex textual responses and looks for key themes within them.
AP Psychology Research Methods: Key Terms
Review some of the key terms related to AP Psychology research methods.
- Hypothesis: A hypothesis expresses a relationship between two variables.
- Variables: Things that can vary among the participants in the research. According to an experimental hypothesis, the dependent variable depends on the independent variable. In other words, a change in the independent variable will produce a change in the dependent variable.
- Representative sample: The goal in selecting a sample is that it be representative of a larger population. This is called a representative sample.
- Confounding variable: A confounding variable is any difference between the experimental and control conditions, except for the independent variable, that might affect the dependent variable.
- Double-blind study: A double-blind study occurs when neither the participants nor the researcher are able to affect the outcome of the research. A double-blind study can be accomplished in a number of ways. The most common way is for the researcher to have someone blind to the participants’ condition interact with the participants.
- Placebo Method: One important method of control is known as the placebo method. Whenever participants in the experimental group are supposed to ingest a drug, participants in the control group are given an inert but otherwise identical substance. This technique allows researchers to separate the physiological effects of the drug from the psychological effects of people thinking they took a drug (called the placebo effect).
- Positive correlation: A positive correlation between two things means that the presence of one thing predicts the presence of the other.
- Negative correlation: The presence of one thing predicts the absence of the other.
- Naturalistic observation: Sometimes researchers opt to observe participants in their natural habitats without interacting with them at all. Such unobtrusive observation is called naturalistic observation. The goal of naturalistic observation is to get a realistic and rich picture of the participants’ behavior. To that end, control is sacrificed.
- Structured interview: A structured interview is like a survey in that there are fixed number of questions asked in a set order. A structured interview can even be completely quantitative if the questions all have a prescribed set of answer choices. However, interviews can also be semistructured or unstructured, allowing more opportunity for the interviewer to react to the participants’ responses and obtain a richer, albeit less controlled, set of data.
- Case study: Another qualitative research method is the case study. The case study method is used to get a full, detailed picture of one participant or a small group of participants.
