Research Methods Module 2 Where to Start

all right so this next one is going to

be shorter than the last one because the

last one wanted to kind of introduce the

videos and why it's important again it's

always beneficial for you to watch the

whole thing so make sure you do it two

times speed that's great but let's go

ahead and dive on into our next chapter

which is really an important one because

it just kind of gets the conversation

started around what are you gonna do

like what's your plan where to start

so

this is what I'm challenging you to do

right I want you to start thinking of a

research question this is a place to

start with what your project is going to

be and a good research question must be

specific enough that a research project

can answer that question okay so in the

first video I gave an example of a

Elementary School area like why is that

one school doing so much better with the

same resources generally the same

student body than this other school over

here and we see that we see that from

time to time I've worked in many school

districts San Jose Unified East Palo

Alto area San Mateo area Sacramento area

and you just see it you just see certain

schools that have almost identical

resources and and student populations

just doing really really well and other

ones not like what's going on there

right and for years it's like a cultural

thing and so that's a good research

question like I don't know like what's

what's going on there and this is

something that

you know out of a research question

comes a hypothesis now there is a

misconception around what a hypothesis

is a hypothesis is a tentative answer to

the research question

um that these two things are linked but

it is not a prediction it doesn't say

well this is because of this right it

it's it's a it's a general linkage type

of question so I'll explain that more in

a second but a prediction is when you're

actually getting really refined in what

you think is going to happen from out of

your research so it comes from that

hypothesis it has to be testable right

again not like some of the previous

personality theories as an example or a

lot of theories social psychology

theories there's all kinds of

sociological theories that are really

hard to test right

um so we're going to stay in the realm

of testable like you know hypotheses and

falsifiability that we talked about in

the last chapter and must include

specific variables and mythologies we'll

talk about variables a lot more in this

class

this Charter is really helpful so on the

top we have a research question right so

it's a description of a broad topic of

study so are there differences for

example uh among groups in terms of cell

phone use while driving okay so you know

maybe different genders different age

ranges different socioeconomic levels

different ethnicities right are there

differences in these different groups

when it comes to their cell phone use

while driving now

operational definitions we haven't

talked about this even yet uh great

detail but what do you mean by cell

phone Driver cell phone use

like plugged in with my Apple Maps and

trying to figure out where I'm going or

texting on the phone listening to music

what is cell phone use you can see right

there there's already a big problem

um but then just you know kind of humor

me for a second because that's not

really what we're talking about here but

it is an interesting discussion is the

hypothesis well that's a tentative idea

yes like there there is a difference or

do males differ uh in females differ in

the use of their cell phone driving

right that's that is going to be your

hypothesis that like we're gonna break

it down like this is this is these are

the groups we care about and and

specifically what we're looking at and

then the prediction is now you're

starting to say there's a deliberate

guess I think that blank so in this

example females are more likely to use a

cell phone while driving what's that

based on is it based on something You

observe conversations you've had like

you're going to start to articulate that

you in your paper at the end of the day

so it has to be something that you can

say right now definitively I think

something's going on here I see a

difference amongst my peers my friends

my parents whatever it is that there's

something going on here there's a

difference in cell phone usage as this

example goes between the genders and

it's that this gender uses it more than

the other okay

maybe that's not true maybe there's no

difference at all maybe that maybe it's

the opposite males use you know more

cell phones while driving you know but

you're going out there again you're

being that first guesser so that other

people can second guess right you're

being brave you're saying this is what I

think is going on and it's okay if I'm

wrong I'm gonna figure this out

so where do you get these ideas from

that's what we want you to start

thinking about is this

starting what's the starting point well

starting point can be common sense right

like you know looking at different terms

like

you know Opposites Attract or you know

birds of the feather birds of a feather

flock together those are both Common

Sense terms and they you know conflict

with one another so which one's true

and maybe you want to refine that more

and say well you know birds of a feather

flock together is more of a long-term

type of situation whereas Opposites

Attract might just be a short-term

relationship that Fizzles out right and

you can start to like delineate that

this is an example right but you start

looking at things that you see around

you that people take for granted as

common sense but you go you know that

normalcy bias alarm is going off in my

head that's it's weird that we do that

right that why do we do it that way

um when it seems like illogical right

that that we would be going about life

like that so like another example might

be well you know my kids play a lot of

video games because their peers play a

lot of video games and I don't want them

to be left out of the video games like

what was that what's right for the kid

you know is that right what's right for

their brain development you know again

some of those people watching this video

might be like oh come on somebody's

hating on video games again but it's

like again you know have we really

looked at this clearly and that's what

we're going to talk more clearly about

when we start discussing these ideas

around what an actual study looks like

because you know there is no video game

study

um that takes children and gives them

you know in one situation their control

group nature video and another uh you

know situation Grand Theft Auto it

doesn't exist it's not ethical no parent

is going to ever give parental consent

for that so all the other data that you

see is correlational it's just going to

be you know things that are descriptive

and we know that it doesn't predict

anything so there's problems there so

and there's going to be problems for you

if you try to test it because of those

same issues ethics parental consent Etc

so you start going okay I start to see

the challenge here coming up with

something I care about coming something

I can test and coming up with something

I can actually make a prediction about

like just a challenge but I'm excited

and it's something I want to do so

practical problems that maybe you're

you're facing right now in your life

that you're trying to figure out so

that's another great source of an idea

is what are you dealing with right now

like are you trying to choose a call as

you go to a major to go to like maybe

you can stay in that realm for a little

while and go and actually test this like

actually go and find people who have

majored in your area like it always

surprises me that people will go to a

university and major in something and

they won't even ever talk to somebody

who graduated from that program and is

30 40 years old doing that you know

doing life right with that particular

degree under their belt it's like well

you know wouldn't you have wanted to

know like what it looked like at the end

just just a basic conversation well let

alone an entire survey or data analysis

that would be really interesting for me

I would love to do that right

and then there's observation of the

world around you so seeing what's going

on with your parents what's going on

with your grandparents what's going on

with the children around in your life

cousins your own kids Etc starting to

see some things that are that are

different today than they were when I

was growing up or et cetera things like

that and um you can also just go into

past research and I'll teach you a

little bit of how to do that like go

into the library virtually in person go

to psycharticles ebscohost you start

poking around certain terms of things

that are interesting to you

um and start going oh okay I see what

they do here they've got they've got

sort of a a certain thing that they sort

of found fascinating within the realm of

Developmental Psychology sociology

whatever it is and then they do the

study on it I'm like hmm I don't

I don't know if that's true with my

group with my area I live my ethnicity

my assist economic level my gender

whatever it is and you start going I'm

gonna take a look at that for myself and

see if that's actually true this these

are all great ways to get thinking about

what is it that I actually want to do

with my own research

so then we've got these bigger umbrellas

like on a theory so like some things you

know are really in the in the weeds like

that applied research from the last

topic and then some things are real

basic research and they have a theory

behind it it's like psychodynamic you

know Theory

um okay great well that's basically just

taking a lot of different types of

research and data that was actually a

bad example but

um social cognitive theory right you

start going okay

they're gonna take a lot of these

different theories our knowledge is

different I'm sorry uh peer-reviewed

articles and books and

um you know people who are experts in

the field lots of case studies and we're

going to combine them into a big theory

that tends to make sense over time but

we can edit it as new data comes in okay

great but really what we want to focus

on are the things that we can have

access to today real easy stuff to

access well those are going to be

through the journal articles you're

going to find these through our library

and they're going to be in the form of

you know literature review uh Theory

articles empirical articles Etc so

literature review is basically somebody

who already did a lot of the hard work

they went out and find found a bunch of

different um journals Journal articles

and experiments and they basically

combine them all together into a

meta-analysis into like a big big term

paper basically that you can read and

it's like oh okay now I can start to see

the general theme of this particular

topic and I a real in in the references

area I've got a ton of different

articles that I'll go to individually

based on their age you don't want to go

too far seven years ten years maybe well

as we know with technology and things

depending on your topic certain things

you don't really want to like it's like

social media you don't really want to go

more than like three or four years old

because what we talk on Facebook here

like Myspace like no like the the apps

of the day like are always changing

right so we want to sort of like you

know stay in the present right but that

meta-analysis is really helpful to know

what's where my starting point

and once you're there you can start

looking at you know theories right so

people are like okay

somebody's put not only all these

articles together but they put a general

theory together around usage of of

social media it's maybe they've written

a book maybe they've got a white a big

white paper about this maybe they got

their own

um Journal article that sort of takes it

to the next level it actually introduces

the theory okay great but I still still

is it in the weeds enough for me to

actually draw on that to like do my own

experiment or my own survey and that's

where we're left with

um really the last one which is you know

looking specifically at Journal articles

that actually have peer-reviewed

elements to them and these their own

Empirical research to them so this is

the format of your paper

your paper is going to be one of these

is the point you're going to have an

abstract you're going to have an

introduction or literature review you

have a method section and the results

section and a discussion section

um all these areas are very important

and they all have their challenges and

their opportunities

so if we break them down the abstract is

short it's only 150 to 250 words it's

it's what you read when you're looking

for a journal article to use

um in your paper so when you're actually

going out there for inspiration and

trying to find things that support your

ideas or build the case for why you're

doing the study that you're doing right

in the introduction section you're going

to read the abstract of the papers that

have been written for you and you're

going to do the exact same thing in your

paper you're going to write an abstract

right which is especially a quick

summary of the research report and it

includes your hypothesis it includes a

procedure and the broad pattern of

results such as a synopsis of what you

found

um but you put very little information

from the discussion section in there

it's there's not a lot of editorial it's

just facts boom boom boom boom boom this

is my hypothesis this is what we found

and this is you know basically what the

results were based on the procedure

an introduction that's when you really

get to explore why you're here why am I

doing this and the same thing with the

people the article is reading well this

is the background this is the research

that's already been done

um this is the theories that are out

there like these it's all relevant so

you want a ton of information you've got

three four five six articles to

reference here because you're really

trying to build a case for why you're

spending time doing this and so the

articles that you read are going to do

the exact same thing so reading enough

articles you're going to start to get a

sense of how to write an article so it

gives specific expectations

um for where this hypothesis came from

how did I develop this hypothesis then

the method section talked about what did

I do did I make a survey did an

experiment like what did I actually do

um and that's a very complicated section

which we're going to talk about a lot in

this class

and then you get to the results section

this is what we found this is how I

found it you know this is this is some

of the you know statistics that are

involved you know um in different

inferential statistics statistics is

such a hard word to say for me and for

most people uh but anyway it's it's

basically just giving graphs and charts

and numbers and things so that somebody

that really wants to pour over the data

they can see it it's very useful then

the fun part the fun part is the

discussion section this is the best part

because now you need to really break

down what is it that you found what is

it that you um that the researcher found

you or them right uh what were the

limits what were the things that

surprised you if you're going to do this

experiment again how would you do it

differently how this experiment compare

or this survey compared to other results

that were found you just need to really

like be creative here and and just so if

your discussion section of your papers

is short and not just that's where

you're going to lose a lot of points you

have to really explore what you would do

differently next time why you think the

results came out the way that they did

why were you thrown for a loop when you

found the results how do we what do we

do with this information how's this

going to benefit your program with

Society in general super fun place to

sit down and write and just come up with

an outline and and just create real

useful

information for society okay and so you

get to explore this past research right

um that's a starting point and also a

point that you're going to need to use

when you're actually in the writing

process for your paper you know months

from now or a month from now or whatever

it is

um but you gotta know what we know

already so that you can build upon that

and use that for your own research

so when you start looking at the anatomy

of a reference right you're going to go

to the library you're going to start the

program I'll give you some resources for

it but you start to say okay like again

date is relevant based on your topic you

don't go too far back in general but you

definitely want to go too far back in

some areas and then it's going to start

to give you some tips for maybe finding

other areas or other things that maybe

you didn't even search for so like this

one the Journal of experimental social

psychology if that's an area that you

find fascinating because you found this

article on um who encourages Latino

women to feel a sense of identity safety

and stem environments

um now you're like okay well if they

were you know willing to do an article

or publish an article in that area they

may have other articles so you actually

just start going to the Journal of

experimental social psychology you start

poking around see there's other things

that maybe inspire you to do something

slightly different but that's basically

how you know this this is how you're

going to cite things for yourself and

your APA

um you know model or standardized uh

reference section

so where do you get these articles well

psycinfo

um uh is a great starting point support

Papa APA we have access to that through

the library for psych articles and psych

books I also mentioned ebscohost these

are the big social science ones where

you're going to find a lot of social

science articles they're kind of

specific in the way you search it's not

quite the same as Google and Google

Scholar but you can definitely use

Google and Google Scholar to kind of

help you get to this but this is going

to be a much more robust

much better way to search than Google

um Google's just going to have access to

basically what's behind the in front of

the paywall behind the paywall stuff

which is basically where psych articles

is you have to have a subscription to it

it's gonna be a lot more robust

and if you start thinking through like

okay like well how do I actually

um do this search well there are

specific rules that you can find online

actual resources I'll send you

um around this search but you want to

start poking around on it and go into

the library website they're going to

have a lot of information there and just

start seeing what you can find and

Google Scholar against another place to

do it but just start exploring so that

you can get an idea about what you want

to cover

and then there's like these basic

strategies which I'm not going to talk

about in detail here because there's too

much on the screen but I'm Gonna Leave

This screen up for a second so you can

just pause it and read it and then if

there are areas that you find of

interest you can explore more okay but

this is essentially teaching you how to

utilize these databases

um same thing here which is basic tools

this is what I'm talking about you know

sort of how to go about the actual

search itself so pause it and actually

utilize these different knock terms and

terms or terms it's very different than

Google uh much more much more

sophisticated and refined and the last

one is

um Google search strategies right so a

little less to do in here because it's

kind of a smarter search engineer but

it's also not as robust so it's just

kind of a easier system to use but make

sure that you look at these very clearly

when you're starting to do your research

that way you just have a very clear

understanding about how to do this

information all right hopefully that was

beneficial we'll see you all for the

next one take care