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HYPOTHESIS - are testable predictions, a solvable problem in the form of a proposition. It is a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation. It is a testable relationship between two or more than two variables.

VARIABLES- are those attributes of objects, events, things and beings, which can be measured. They are the characteristics or conditions that are manipulated, controlled or observed by the experimenter. Variables are factors that change or can be changed.

INDEPENDENT VARIABLE – It is that one variable which is manipulated, controlled, measured, selected by the experimenter for the purpose of producing observable changes in the DV. The IV is that variable on the basis of which predictions about DV is made. It is the stimulus variable.

DEPENDENT VARIABLE – It is that variable about which the experimenter makes a prediction. DV is the one that is being measured and tested in an experiment and is dependent on the IV. It is the response variable.

EXTRANEOUS VARIABLE - These are all variables, which are not the independent variable, but could affect the results of the experiment. Hence all the other variables, factors that could affect the dependent variable to change must be controlled. These other variables are called extraneous or confounding variables.

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1- Observation- It is the 1st basic step in research in which we observe the behaviour of people in order to asses it.
2- Propose a Hypothesis- They are testable predictions. It is the starting point of further investigation.
3- Make Predictions - A prediction is an outcome we'd expect to see if the hypothesis is accepted.
4- Test the prediction - To test the hypothesis, we need to make an observation or perform an experiment associated with the prediction. The results of a test may either support or contradict—oppose—a hypothesis.
5- Interpretation - The last step of the scientific method is to reflect on our results and use them to guide our next steps.

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1- ACHIEVEMENT TEST - Used in assessing what a person has achieved or acquired. Eg. Academic Performance Rating Scale, SAT, ACT.
2. PERSONALITY TEST - Used for assessing personality traits or characteristics. Eg. RIBT, TAT
3- APTITUDE TEST - Used in assessing an individuals aptitude in a specific area. Eg. GATB
4- INTEREST TEST - Used for assessing  varying interests possessed by individuals. Eg. SCII
5- ATTITUDE TEST - Used in assesing attitude of a person towards a certain idea, event, person, custom. Eg. L.L.Thurstone Attitude Scale
6- INTELLIGENCE TEST - Used for assessing intelligence and cognitive functioning of individuals. Eg. WAIS, SBTI, Raven Progressive Matrices
7- CLINICAL TEST- Used to assess individuals with any kind of psychological problems. MMPI, Beck Depression Inventory.

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1. Detection of specific Behavior: Psychological test is used to measure and to detect the abilities of a person.

2. Individual Differences: A psychological test is used to measure the individual differences, that is different between abilities of different persons and the performance of the same person at different time.

3. To diagnose Psychological Problems: The psychological tests are usually used in clinical psychology.In clinical psychology a test's function is to diagnose mental disorders.

4. Legal Classification: A psychological test helps in classifying a number of people into different categories For example normal and abnormal, criminal and innocent, intellectual and mental retarded, able and disable etc.

5. Promoting Self Understanding: A psychological test provide standardized information about the abilities, capabilities, aptitudes, potential competencies interest, trait and states of a person which helps in understanding one's personality and planing future prospective.

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Psychological tests are written, visual, or verbal evaluations administered to assess the cognitive and emotional functioning of children and adults. These tests are used to assess a variety of mental abilities and attributes, including achievement and ability, personality, and neurological functioning.

CHARACTERISTICS
1. Objectivity: The test should be free from subjective—judgement regarding the ability, skill, knowledge, trait or potentiality to be measured and evaluated.
2. Reliability: This refers to the extent to which they obtained results are consistent or reliable. When the test is administered on the same sample for more than once with a reasonable gap of time, a reliable test will yield same scores.
3. Validity: It refers to extent to which the test measures what it intends to measure. Validity explains us whether the test fulfils the objective of its development. There are many methods to assess validity of a test.
4. Norms: Norms refer to the average performance of a representative sample on a given test. It gives a picture of average standard of a particular sample in a particular aspect.
5. Practicability: The test must be practicable in time for completion time required. the length, number of items and scoring. The test should not be difficult to understand and lengthy.

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It is the most scientific and objective method. The word experiment comes from a Latin word " to try" or "put to test". An experiment is an investigation in which a hypothesis is scientifically tested. In an experiment, an independent variable (the cause) is manipulated and the dependent variable (the effect) is measured; any extraneous variables are controlled. This method relies on controlled methods, random assignment and the manipulation of variables.
ADVANATGE
By being able to isolate specific variables, it becomes possible to determine if a potential outcome is viable. Each variable can be controlled to study what possible outcomes are available for a product, theory, or idea as well.

DISADVANTAGE
It studies human behaviour under complete controlled and rigid conditions. It creates an artificial situation and the behaviour studied here may be different from natural behaviour.

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A case study is a research method involving in-depth investigations of a single person, group, event or community. Typically, data are gathered from a variety of sources and by using several different methods (e.g. observations & interviews). The information is mainly biographical and relates to events in the individual's past (i.e. retrospective), as well as to significant events which are currently occurring in his or her everyday life.
ADVANTAGES
Because of their in-depth, multi-sided approach case studies often shed light on aspects of human thinking and behavior that would be unethical or impractical to study in other ways.

DISADVANTAGE
Because a case study deals with only one person/event/group we can never be sure if the case study investigated is representative of the wider body of "similar" instances. This means the the conclusions drawn from a particular case may not be transferable to other settings.

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It is a type of observational study that analyzes data from a population, or a representative subset, at a specific point in time—that is, cross-sectional data. The benefit of a cross-sectional study design is that it allows researchers to compare many different variables at the same time. The cross-sectional  is a observational study.
ADVANTAGE
Inexpensive and Fast: Cross-sectional studies are usually allow researchers to collect a great deal of information quite quickly. Data is often obtained inexpensively using self-report surveys. Researchers are then able to amass large amounts of information from a large pool of participants.

DISADVANTAGE
It is only effective when it represents the entire population: Proper cross-sectional studies must be representative of an entire population being studied. If no such representation exists, then the findings from the research will not have validity.

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A longitudinal study, is observational. Longitudinal research refers to research that investigates events or phenomena over an extended period of time. It is most used in Developmental Psychology. It is a research design that involves repeated observations of the same variables (e.g., people) over short or long periods of time.
ADVANTAGE
Longitudinal methods are particularly useful when studying development and lifespan issues. Researchers can look at how certain things may change at different points in life and explore some of the reasons why these developmental shifts take place.

DISADVANTAGE
It takes time.
Researchers involved with longitudinal studies may never see the full outcome of their work. It may take several years before the data begins producing observable patterns or relationships that can be tracked.

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ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES OF FIELD STUDY

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ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES OF FIELD STUDY

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Strength: behavior in a field experiment is more likely to reflect real life because of its natural setting, i.e. higher ecological validity than a lab experiment.

Limitation: There is less control over extraneous variables that might bias the results. This makes it difficult for another researcher to replicate the study in exactly the same way.

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Field experiments are done in the everyday (i.e. real life) environment of the participants. The experimenter still manipulates the independent variable, but in a real-life setting (so cannot really control extraneous variables). It is also known as Normative Study as the researcher goes out in the field to investigate.

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ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES OF OBSERVATION

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ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES OF OBSERVATION

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ADVANTAGES
1- Simplest Method:
Observation is probably the most common and the simplest method of data collection. It does not require much technical knowledge.

LIMITATION
2- Some of the Occurrences may not be Open to Observation: There are many behaviours and activities that are not available for oberservation.

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1- CONTROLLED OBSERVATION : A study conducted by watching the participants behaviour in a situation in which the social or physical environment has been manipulated by the researchers. It can be conducted in either the participants normal environment or in an artificial environmnet.

2- UNCONTROLLED OBSERVATION : A study in which the observer records the whole range of possible behaviours. The researcher doesn't control or manipulate the settings and it usually takes place in a natural setting. It studies the spontaneous behavior of participants in natural surroundings. The researcher simply records what they see in whatever way they can.

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Observation consists of receiving knowledge of the outside world through our senses, or recording information using scientific tools and instruments.