What are the ways of acquiring knoweledge?
- superstition
- rationalism
- intuition
- tenacity
- empiricism
- authority
- SCIENCE
Ways of finding explanations?
What must an explanation be?
- co-variation of events: how one relates to another
- time-order relationships: how does the order effect relo.
- elimination of alternative causes
- Verifiable, falsifiable (able to be proved false), predictable, fairness (in obtaining).
Goals of science
To describe, predict and explain behvaiour
What’re the problems with non-scientific research
- eraneous benefits
- inaccurate info
- flaws in logical reasoning
- perceptions based on prior exp.
What are the steps of the scientific method?
- Observation
- Form question
- Hypothesis
- Evaluate Prediction
- Observe to support, refute, refine etc.
Criteria of the scientific method
Systematic empiricism: making observations in a systematic manner. Aids in refining theory to test hyp.
Public ally verifiable: presenting info to be observed tested and criticised
Empirically solve able: stating questions in a way that are answerable by means of currently available research techs.
What are the 10 steps of the research process?
- Research idea
- Hypothesis
- Define variables
- Identify parts. And subjects
- Select strategy
- Research design
- Conduct study
- Evaluate data
- Report results
- Refine or reformulate
What is a theory and what are the qualities of a good theory?
Interconnected set of statements which is related to logically connected knowledge forming an explanation.
- parsimony (little to no assumptions)
- precision
- rigorous testing
