1.3.1: The Scientific Method

I can hear you now, “What? You just convinced me that I will need to know something about statistics to be good in my future career, but, seriously, the scientific method?”

Yup. It turns out that the social sciences are a science. And each step of the scientific method is related to what you’ll learn in this course.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Model of Stages of the Scientific Method. (CC-BY-SA; Michelle Oja via source)

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\) shows a model of the scientific method as a cycle. The basic idea is that to learn about the world, we often start with questions which then lead to developing research hypotheses. Once we have a hypothesis, we can decide how to test that hypothesis by designing a study to collect data to test that hypothesis (and then collecting the data). Some argue that the Research Literature stage should go between these, too. Sometimes, your question has already been answered by others! For researchers, sometimes they start with reading the academic literature, and then that leads them to research questions and hypotheses. For our purposes, we’ll start with a research question that leads to developing a research hypothesis, then design a study and collect data to test that research hypothesis. Once we have some data, we can analyze it in the next stage. In the social sciences, analyzing the data is not the last step. We then use the results to answer the research question, or make a conclusion. If we started with research questions, then the last stage is sharing the conclusion! There are tons of ways to do this, with the most formal mode being an academic research paper or presentation.

Exercise \(\PageIndex{1}\)

Which of the stages of the scientific method do you think that a behavioral statistics class will focus on?

Answer

Most students new to this course think that the emphasis will be on Analyze Data, but that’s just a step to get to Making Conclusions and sharing our findings. In this text, we will focus on Analyzing Data and writing up our findings (Research Literature), but writing up our results involves Making Conclusions that test Research Hypotheses! And, we do need to know a little about how the data was collected to know how to analyze the data. In sum, we’ll touch on all of these stages!

The following example of using the scientific method (Table \(\PageIndex{2}\)) is based off of Part 2 (What Students Should Know about How People Learn) and Part 3 (Cognitive Principles for Optimizing Learning) of Dr. Chew's five-part video series on the best way to learn material and pass your classes. Dr. Chew is a cognitive psychologist, so his career is to learn how people think, process material, and learn.

Table \(\PageIndex{1}\): Scientific Method

Stages of the Scientific Method	Description of the Step of the Scientific Method	Example of the Step of the Scientific Method
Research Question and Hypothesis	The research questions could be pretty broad. This is a sentence that states a predicted relationship between two or more groups. This should not be a question, and it should not include the word “because” or else you actually have two hypotheses (the predicted relationship, and the reason why the relationship is that way).	RQ: "What should I do to pass this class?" RH: "Students who re-organize their notes will earn more points on their first paper than students who re-read their notes."
Design Study and Collect Data	There are whole classes that help you learn how best to design studies to answer your research questions. The important part now is to identify who you are collecting data from (sample) and how you will count or measure the variables in your Research Hypothesis.	"At the end of each class session, half of the class will spend 20 minutes rewriting and organizing their notes, while the other half of the class will spend 20 minutes reviewing (re-reading) their notes. We will then compare their points earned on the first paper between these two groups."
Analyze Data	Remember the second reason that you have to take this class about reporting evidence? That’s the first step in this part of the Scientific Method. The other part of this stage of the Scientific Method is to test your Research Hypothesis	That's what the rest of this book will be about!
Make Conclusion	This is when you decide if your Research Hypothesis was supported or not. (We don’t say that a Research Hypothesis is “proven;” we’ll discuss why not when we talk about Null Hypothesis Significant Testing).	Every chapter after the APA Style chapter will help with this!
Research Literature	Let people know what you found!	Typically, researchers present at a conference or publish a research article. In this example, we could also share our findings with the student newspaper or create a flyer or infographic for tutors.

Conclusion

To the surprise of many students, research and statistics is a fairly significant part of the social sciences. To the surprise of no one, statistics is very rarely the favorite part of one’s education. After all, if you really loved the idea of doing statistics, you’d probably be enrolled in a statistics class right now, not a behavioral statistics class. So, not surprisingly, there’s a pretty large proportion of the student base that isn’t happy about the fact that their major has so much research and statistics in it. By the end of this chapter, if not this textbook, hopefully you'll understand why research and statistics are so important!