Autore della sezione: Danielle J. Navarro and David R. Foxcroft

There is more to research methods than statistics

So far, most of what I have talked about is statistics, and so you would be forgiven for thinking that statistics is all I care about. To be fair, you would not be far wrong, but research methodology is a broader concept than statistics. So most research methods courses will cover topics that relate much more to the pragmatics of research design, and in particular the issues that you encounter when trying to do research with humans. However, about 99% of student fears relate to the statistics part of the course, so I have focused on the stats in this discussion, and hopefully I have convinced you that statistics matters, and more importantly, should not be feared. That said, it is typical for introductory research methods classes to be very stats-heavy. This is not (usually) because the lecturers are evil people. Quite the contrary, in fact. Introductory classes focus a lot on the statistics because you almost always find yourself needing statistics before you need other research methods training. Why? Because almost all your assignments in other classes will rely on statistical training, to a greater extent than they rely on other methodological tools. It is not common for undergraduate assignments to require you to design your own study from the ground up (in which case you would need to know a lot about research design), but it is common for assignments to ask you to analyse and interpret data that were collected in a study that someone else designed (in which case you need statistics). In that sense, from the perspective of enabling you to do well in all your other classes, statistics is more urgent.

But note that “urgent” is different from “important” – they both matter. I really do want to stress that research design is just as important as data analysis, and this book does spend some time on it. However, while statistics has a kind of universality, and provides a set of core tools that are useful for most types of psychological and social research, the research methods side is not quite so universal. There are some general principles that everyone should think about, but a lot of research design is very idiosyncratic, and is specific to the area of research that you want to engage in. To the extent that it is the details that matter, those details do not usually show up in an introductory stats and research methods class.