Scientific Methods in Research

Part One

In the bid to examine the use of scientific methods in research and answer the questions concerning this prompt, I have chosen a study that was conducted by Abdel-Khalek and Lester (2012) entitled “Construction of Religiosity, Subjective well-being, anxiety, and depression in two cultures: Kuwait and USA.” Considering the use of scientific methods, we can state that to a significant degree, and these researchers used them scientifically. A scientific method utilizes empirical techniques in posing researchable questions, test the questions and analyze the results. The research posed three aims, showing the significance of the research, more importantly, highlighting the hypothesis concerning the study groups. The researchers hypothesized that “(1) there will be significant differences between the two samples in the psychological traits assessed (2) there will be a significant correlation between religiosity with SWB (positively) and psychopathology (negatively), and (3) two factors will be extracted from the correlations.

In the execution of the research, scientific methods of data collection were embraced, such as the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire (OHQ), the Love of Live Scale, the Kuwait University Anxiety Scale, and the Center for Epidemiology Studies-Depression Scale. These tools were adequately used in making observations about the population, formulating questions that formed the hypothesis, or testable explanations, making predictions based on the hypotheses. However, the researchers did not test the predictions or used the results to make new hypotheses or predictions. Additionally, the research findings were limited based on data due to the age of the college students, therefore worried about whether the same results can be replicated among the older age groups.

 

Part Two

For the second research project, I choose the project title be “Social Cognition among the African American Communities.” Basically, social cognition is a sub-field deduced from social psychology, which highlights how people process, store and apply information concerning people and situations, with a direct impact on individual behavior (Kelly, 2019). The significance of undertaking this project is to understand the role of cognitive processes on social interactions and behavior, examine how we think, feel and interact with the world around us. In direct conjunction with behavior, we will research attitudes develop and their impacts on our social lives.

In order to carry out a successful research project, it is essential to apply scientific methods fully. Our research problem is to investigate how attitudes influence our social lives and interactions with people. In the research, we will try to use a mixed research design, and we will be in a position to explore how the intermediate environment affects behavior, how consequences strengthens or weakens behavior, the ultimate response of behavior on implications, and interventions on behavior in the future (Schoonenboom & Johnson, 2017). Therefore, after the selection of the research participants, we will make an observation on individual behavior based n attitude. This is followed by formulating interviews or questionnaires with well-structured questions to gather information about behavior, feelings, and attitudes. It is also essential to ensure that research hypotheses are formulated before the project starts; these will guide the research process, help in testing the predictions and the nature of results.  

 

 

References

Abdel-Khalek, A. M., & Lester, D. (2012). Constructions of religiosity, subjective well-being, anxiety, and depression in two cultures: Kuwait and USA. International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 58(2), 138-145.

Kelly, S. (2019). Cognitive behavior therapy with African Americans.

Schoonenboom, J., & Johnson, R. B. (2017). How to construct a mixed methods research design. KZfSS Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, 69(2), 107-131