Should psychology be written for the layman or should science be exclusively for scientists?
Is it ethically ok to use internet sources as data for qualitative studies?
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According to the english oxford dictionary, correlation is a mutual relationship or connection between two or more things. In the context of psychology is it used to insinuate that one variable has an effect on another. A positive correlation is one that shows that as one variable’s value increases, so does the other variable’s. A negative correlation is the opposite of this. The correlations between two variables in a particular study can be calculated using the correlation coefficient. The correlation coefficient is a number between -1 and 1. A result above 0 means there is a positive correlation, a number below 0 means there is a negative correlation, and a result of 0 means there is no correlation.
Causality, on the other hand, is defined by the oxford english dictionary as the relationship between cause and effect. Showing causality in a study would be providing evidence that one variable was directly responsible for a change in another variable. One would think that being able to show a strong correlation would be enough to show causality in a data set, however this is most certainly not the case. The phrase ‘correlation does not imply causality’ is echoed in all scientific fields. This would be correct in a study that showed a strong correlation between musical ability and dental health, as these two factors are unlikely to be related, and so we could infer that in this case correlation does show causality.
It is possible for us to be pretty sure that correlation means causality in some cases. For example, we can be fairly certain that eating too much food will cause people to put on weight. However, we can never prove that eating too much food does actually cause people to put on weight. This is because in any psychological study there is a slight chance (usually >5%) that the results of the study are down to chance. This means that any study conducted can only show a relationship, or correlation, but no direct link between two variables.
It is an important principle in science that correlation does not equal causality. It is a very useful rule to abide by, as it stops us as psychologists jumping to rash conclusions off of one set of results. With this is mind, it is still possible to be pretty much certain when it is sensible to assume causality. We can be fairly sure, for example, that the earth orbits the sun. To conclude, while one should never assume causality from correlation, there are times when it is reasonable to assume causality as a result of repeated strong correlation. However, it must be emphasised over and over again that correlation does not equal causality!
Is it ethically ok to use internet sources as data for qualitative studies?
Posted: March 11, 2012 in UncategorizedThe internet is an incredible thing. It connects people from all over the world and is an huge source of information. There is no wonder that psychologists have looked to it as a source of data for qualitative studies. However, is it ethical to use data from the internet?
The subject of ethic comes up a great deal in the field of Psychology. One of the main ethical issues within studies is a lack of informed consent. This is the act of failing to obtain written consent from a participant for a study. When taking data from the internet, researchers rarely obtain any form of informed consent before taking the data they require. An example of this is a study conducted by Golder & Macy in 2011, which analysed just under 2.5 million people through their Twitter feeds. The issue here is that anything posted on a social networking site similar to Twitter is counted as public domain, but many people would still take issue with their personal Twitter feeds being used unknowingly for a psychological study. However, on the flip side, people would almost certainly change the way they ‘tweeted’ if they knew that there was someone analysing each and every tweet they submitted.
Data on the internet is not only obtained by lifting information from sites like Twitter. Data is sometimes obtain from sources such as online questionnaires, or even online interviews. A study by Warschauer in 1996 suggested that students (aged from 19-44) were more comfortable and more willing to participate in studies if they were done online, as opposed to in person. This suggests that by using the internet to obtain data researchers can obtain both a larger pool of participants, and a larger representation of a student population within their data.
On the other hand, studies have shown that people behave differently when they are online to when they are going about their day-to-day lives. A study by Vitaly et al (1991) suggested that people can switch authority types when they are online. A large number of participants within the study changed from one end of the authority spectrum to the other when they were on the internet. This could mean that data collected from the internet could be innaccurate, as people will behave very differently when they are anonymous online. As well as people behaving differently, many people in the world still do not have access to the internet. This means that data collected from the internet excludes a large chunk of populations; especially the elderley in countries like England and Wales.
It certainly is possible to collect data that is ethically sound from the internet. Survey websites can be very useful to collect data. These only take a few minutes, and it is much more convenient for people to simply turn on their computer and fill in a survey than for them to go down to a research building and fill it in in person. This convenience will mean that people are more likely to participate. Also, there may be ethical issues with people not filling in surveys honestly, but these issues exist for surveys not conducted on the internet, so there is no disadvantage there.
To conclude, it may not be ethically sound to take data from people without first obtaining informed consent, even if the information is public domain, but when data is obtained from sources such as survey websites then i believe it is fine to do so.
Should psychology be written for the layman or should science be exclusively for scientists?
Posted: February 19, 2012 in UncategorizedIn order to attempt to answer this question i must first give a description of what constitutes a ‘layman’. According to the Oxford Dictionary, a layman is a ‘person without professional or specialized knowledge in a particular subject’. With this layed out, i can continue onto the issue at hand.
Science is a very respected profession, and requires an awful lot of work and intelligence to attain any sort of recognition in the field. Some people seem to think that this means that science, and any papers or journals written about science, should be restricted to those who work within the field. While this might seem fair to some, the very suggestion has an air of elitist and snobbery about it which sits uncomfortably with me. The idea that using certain language in order to make a research report harder to understand for people who aren’t knowledgeable in that area of study is unnecessary. I can accept that some level of jargon is necessary in order to avoid having to define some psychological terms within papers, but otherwise the jargon can easily be kept to a minimum.
All terminology within psychology, as with all other sciences, came about for a reason. They help to reduce any potential for misconceptions about the subject and offer a shorthand way to describe a phenomenon. Some psychological concepts are very similar to each other, so appropriate terminology can help to ensure that readers know exactly what is being discussed. In this sense, it is best if scientific papers are written with terminology used where appropriate.
An good amount of psychological research is funded by the taxpayer. Any taxpayer who is not educated in the field of psychology then counts as a layman. This would mean that people are not able to fully understand research that they are helping to fund. This seems more than a little unfair to me. If one of the reasons that research is being conducted is that it is being funded by the contributions of laymen, that those very laymen should be able to benefit from the research. It is like making an investment within something, but then not being able to reap any of the rewards when the investment pays off.
The definition given earlier defines a layman as someone who does not have specialized knowledge in a particular subject. If we were to exclude people from being able to fully understand the results of psychological research just because they cannot fully comprehend some of the more complex aspects of psychology then the same could occur to us for different subjects. For example, i am a huge music nerd (heck, i even named this blog after the album i was listening to when i created it), and i spend an awful lot of money on new albums and vinyls every week (i really shouldn’t be doing so, i always end up living the last month of term in abstract poverty because of this 😛 ). I am not very good at playing any instruments, however. I would be appalled if i was unable to listen to music because i didn’t understand the intricacies of the instrumental arrangements and the different production methods. It just seems unjust to me to exclude people from research solely to make the reports sound more professional.
To conclude, while some jargon may be necessary in order to get an idea across, i think on the whole that writing in such a way that a layman could not understand is unnecessary and a little elitist. Everyone should be able to benefit from the findings of psychological research.
The file drawer problem is the process in which researchers fail to report (or ‘file away’) studies they have conducted that yield results that don’t show statistical significance or any causal link between two variables. It can also refer to the filing away of results that are not congruent with a researcher’s past findings in a field.
On the surface it seems that simply discarding results in this way could be harmless, and have no real consequences. However, it is clear that if a practice of only publishing research with positive outcomes would result in a huge misrepresentation of the area being studied. This is especially true in the case of meta-analyses. If a meta-analysis is conducted looking at the results published in a particular area where some data has been withheld then the meta-analysis will not be able to provide an accurate portrayal of findings in that area.
Whether or not the file drawer problem is a problem depends on how often it actually applies to research done. If it only occurs in a small number of cases then it is not much of an issue. According to Rosenthal (1979) “The extreme view of the “file drawer problem” is that journals are filled with the 5% of the studies that show Type I errors, while the file drawers are filled with the 95% of the studies that show nonsignificant results”. If this is the case then the file drawer problem is a real issue, as it means that a large amount of results reported are not representative of the truth.
Brian Martinson conducted a study in 2005 in which he sent a survey to thousands of either mid-career or early-career scientists; he obtained 1768 responses from mid-career scientists and 1476 responses from early-career scientists. The scientists were allowed to remain anonymous so that they would answer honestly. The study found that 6% of the scientists admitted to disposing of data because it didn’t agree with their previous research, and more that 15% admitted to ignoring obvservations because they had a feeling that they were inaccurate. This study could be misrepresenting the number of misbehaving scientists to some extent because they would be less likely to respond to a study such as the one conducted by Martinson et al. However, the study does show that at least 21% of scientists that participated in the study were willing to throw away data when conducting research.
The main reason that the file drawer problem is such a large problem is that it is very difficult to prevent it from occuring. All the public can do is trust that scientists will behave objectively when conducting their research and act in the interest of science rather than in the interests of their own expectations. However, it seems more difficult to trust some areas of research than others. For example, many are skeptical in regards to any parapsychological research as anyone that could show any evidence that any paranormal goings-on exist would surely recieve great acclaim from their peers. However, no such results have been found in regards to paranormal activity, and the whole area is a bit silly really.
To conclude, the file drawer problem is an issue, and can result in a misrepresentation of an area of study, especially when meta-analyses are conducted. There is no current way to counter the file drawer problem though, so all we can do is trust that scientists will act with the interests on science in their minds, and not their own interests.
Hi Julie, these are my comments for this fortnight.
Do qualitative research methods violate the scientific method?
Posted: December 8, 2011 in UncategorizedThe question of whether qualitative research methods voilate the scientific method has been debated widely for a long time. Even though qualitatitive research methods remain part of the scientific method there is still a sense within the scientific community that qualitative research methods are inferior to quantitative methods.In order to answer the question posed, first we must define what the scientific method actually is. According to the Oxford Dictionary the scientific method is “a method of procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses.”
There are two sides to this debate. The first side assert that qualititative research methods are not only inferior, but that they are also a form of pseudo science. Kerlinger famously said that “everything is either 1 or 0”, implying that everything came back to statistics and quantitative research methods, and that qualititative methods were largely irrelevant. Quantitative data is seen as more scientific as it can more easily be analysed. Statistical tests can be used to obtain values that can support or refute a hypothesis. Quantitative data is more of a simple collection of values which represent variables within a study. Another key factor about quantitative data is that it is deductive. This means that researchers using quantitative research methods must start their studies with a clear hypothesis already established, and that the data collected will simply support the data, or not. Since it is seen by some as an essential part of the scientific method that data collection be deductive, this could be a place in which qualitative data falls down, since it is inductive which means the hypothesis is formed after data is collected and made to fit the results obtained.
Qualitative research methods is not without its supporters. It allows for more theoretical variables to be measured, which can be very helpful, especially in the field of psychology. With the use of qualitative data collection psychological constructs such as anger, personality and intelligence to be measured. Rather than rely on numbers like quantitative research methods, qualitative research methods rely on data collection through the use of things such as interviews and questionnaires. The main issue with qualitative data is that it could potentially be interpreted differently by different researchers, the objectivity of qualitative data is highly questionable. In order to prevent any type of bias all data must be transcribed so that it can be reviewed by other researchers and so objectivity can be as high as possible. However, without qualitative research methods it would be impossible to obtain true insight into participant’s true feelings and opinions as that cannot be expressed solely through numbers. Many psychologists feel that they need something more than quantitative data in order to fully understand how their particpants are feeling within their studies. Campbell even went so far as to say that all data had “some kind of qualitative grounding”.
Whether or not qualitative research methods violate the scientific method or not is, almost ironically, quite subjective. Some people believe that without the statistical analyses and unquestionable objectivity of quantitative data collection a study cannot truly be adhereing to the scientific method. However, there are times when qualitative data collection is the only way in which to collect data to test a hypothesis with. Qualitative research methods do indeed fill all the criterea in order to adhere to the Oxford Dictionary definition of the scientific method, and therefore i would conclude that qualitative research methods do not violate the scientific method, however i would say that opinions on this matter tend to be highly subjective.
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