A wide range of research methods are used in psychology. These methods vary by the sources of information that are drawn on, how that information is sampled, and the types of instruments that are used in data collection. Methods also vary by whether they collect qualitative

Qualitative research

Qualitative research is a method of inquiry employed in many different academic disciplines, traditionally in the social sciences, but also in market research and further contexts. Qualitative researchers aim to gather an in-depth understanding of human behavior and the reasons that govern such...

 data, quantitative

Quantitative research

In the social sciences, quantitative research refers to the systematic empirical investigation of social phenomena via statistical, mathematical or computational techniques. The objective of quantitative research is to develop and employ mathematical models, theories and/or hypotheses pertaining to...

 data or both.

Qualitative psychological research

Qualitative psychological research

In psychology, qualitative research has come to be defined as research whose findings are not arrived at by statistical or other quantitative procedures. Qualitative research is often said to be naturalistic. That is, its goal is to understand behaviour in a natural setting...

 is where the research findings are not arrived at by statistical or other quantitative procedures. Quantitative psychological research

Quantitative psychological research

Quantitative psychological research is defined as psychological research which performs mathematical modeling and statistical estimation or statistical inference. This definition distinguishes it from so-called qualitative psychological research; however, many psychologists do not acknowledge any...

 is where the research findings result from mathematical modeling and statistical estimation or statistical inference. Since qualitative information can be handled as such statistically, the distinction relates to method, rather than the topic studied.

There are three main types of psychological research:

• Descriptive research
  Descriptive research
  Descriptive research, also known as statistical research, describes data and characteristics about the population or phenomenon being studied. Descriptive research answers the questions who, what, where, when, "why" and how......
  
  
• Correlational research
• Experimental research
  Experiment
  An experiment is a methodical procedure carried out with the goal of verifying, falsifying, or establishing the validity of a hypothesis. Experiments vary greatly in their goal and scale, but always rely on repeatable procedure and logical analysis of the results...
  
  

The following are common research designs and data collection methods:

• Archival research
  Archival research
  -Basic Definition:An archive is a way of sorting and organizing older documents, whether it be digitally or manually . Archiving is one part of the curating process which is typically carried out by a curator...
  
  
• Case study
  Case study
  A case study is an intensive analysis of an individual unit stressing developmental factors in relation to context. The case study is common in social sciences and life sciences. Case studies may be descriptive or explanatory. The latter type is used to explore causation in order to find...
  
  
• Computational modeling
• Content analysis
  Content analysis
  Content analysis or textual analysis is a methodology in the social sciences for studying the content of communication. Earl Babbie defines it as "the study of recorded human communications, such as books, websites, paintings and laws."According to Dr...
  
  
• Controlled experiment
• Field experiment
  Field experiment
  A field experiment applies the scientific method to experimentally examine an intervention in the real world rather than in the laboratory...
  
  
• Interview
  Interview
  An interview is a conversation between two people where questions are asked by the interviewer to obtain information from the interviewee.- Interview as a Method for Qualitative Research:"Definition" -...
  
  , can be structured or unstructured.
• Meta-analysis
  Meta-analysis
  In statistics, a meta-analysis combines the results of several studies that address a set of related research hypotheses. In its simplest form, this is normally by identification of a common measure of effect size, for which a weighted average might be the output of a meta-analyses. Here the...
  
  
• Neuroimaging
  Neuroimaging
  Neuroimaging includes the use of various techniques to either directly or indirectly image the structure, function/pharmacology of the brain...
  
   and other psychophysiological
  Psychophysiology
  Psychophysiology is the branch of psychology that is concerned with the physiological bases of psychological processes. While psychophysiology was a general broad field of research in the 1960s and 1970s, it has now become quite specialized, and has branched into subspecializations...
  
   methods
• Observation
  Observation
  Observation is either an activity of a living being, such as a human, consisting of receiving knowledge of the outside world through the senses, or the recording of data using scientific instruments. The term may also refer to any data collected during this activity...
  
  , can be naturalistic, participant or controlled.
• Quasi experiment
• Self-report inventory
  Self-report inventory
  A self-report inventory is a type of psychological test in which a person fills out a survey or questionnaire with or without the help of an investigator...
  
  
• Random sample survey
  Statistical survey
  Survey methodology is the field that studies surveys, that is, the sample of individuals from a population with a view towards making statistical inferences about the population using the sample. Polls about public opinion, such as political beliefs, are reported in the news media in democracies....
  
  
• Twin study
  Twin study
  Twin studies help disentangle the relative importance of environmental and genetic influences on individual traits and behaviors. Twin research is considered a key tool in behavioral genetics and related fields...
  
  

Research designs vary according to the period(s) of time over which data is collected:

• Retrospective study: Subjects are chosen, then data is collected on their past experience of proposed IVs.
• Prospective study: Subjects are recruited prior to the proposed independent effects being administered or occurring.

• Cross-sectional study
  Cross-sectional study
  Cross-sectional studies form a class of research methods that involve observation of all of a population, or a representative subset, at one specific point in time...
  
  , in which a population sampled on all proposed measures at one point in time.
• Longitudinal study
  Longitudinal study
  A longitudinal study is a correlational research study that involves repeated observations of the same variables over long periods of time — often many decades. It is a type of observational study. Longitudinal studies are often used in psychology to study developmental trends across the...
  
  : Subjects are studied at multiple time points: May address cohort effects and indicate causal directions of effects.

Research in psychology has been conducted with both animals and human subjects:

• Animal research
• Human subject research

External links

• Research methods at The Psychology Wiki