Psychology Paper: Research Methods, Types, Topic Selection and Tips

When it comes to psychology, it is often observed that the students find it hard to craft a research paper from scratch. They find it hard to choose topics, gather resources, and understand complex ideas or procedures. Most importantly, they lack insight into research methodologies and types. As a result, they cannot write the paper properly.

In this blog, we will discuss the writing process in details. But, before we proceed to the writing part, let us delve into psychology research methods and research types.

There are five types of research methods:

• Case Study

It is a qualitative form of study where the researcher investigates one person or a group of people. In addition to this, the observer interviews the participants and registers the answers.

• Experiment

It is a qualitative method of analysis in which the researcher studies one individual or a group of individuals over a period of time. The observer also interviews the participants and registers the responses.

• Observational Study

It is a type of, or naturally occurring, qualitative research that is controlled. Systematic and detailed documentation is involved. Identifying and defining a series of variables is the main objective of this study.

• Survey

This form of quantitative analysis is focused, and is highly subjective, on self-reported results. It also involves several subjects, where random sampling is done.

• Content Analysis

Here, the researchers rely on print, television, radio, and repetition of ideas, phrases, and words. This is a quantitative method, where one can use mathematical data to study patterns in a society like a gender bias, stereotypes.

If you are unable to understand it, you should take the help of professional tutors. And if you have the assignment to submit, you can buy assignment online. When it comes to psychology research types, you have

• Correlational Research

It is a preliminary way to collect data, where researchers verify if there is a relationship between two variables. Thus, there exist positive, negative and no correlations.

• Descriptive Research

It refers to research issues, data analysis and research design that would be carried out on the subject. Quantitative analysis, unregulated variables, cross-sectional studies, etc.

, are the salient characteristics of this sort of research.

Experimental Research

Pre-experimental, quasi-experimental, and real experimental research are three types of experimental research. It is defined by the manner in which the researcher positions the subjects under various conditions and classes.

Now that you have an insight into the research methods and types, it would be easier for you to write.

Now, when you write the psychology papers, you have to pay heed to the following points.

1. Select Good Topic

First, you must decide on the type of paper you want to write. You can either write a report or an empirical paper that details your own research. Or, you can write a literature review summarising the research conducted by other people. Once you are through with it, you should look for good topics, a broad scope of discussion, and trending. Moreover, the topic should be important for your career. If you find the task to be intricate, you can buy assignments online in Australia.

You can consider topics like:

• Top factors that hasten the ageing process
• Impact of cognitive therapy in treating panic attacks and anxiety
• Does our subconsciousness affect decision-making ability?
• Domestic violence on women and men and our society’s negligence
• Is stalking a type of psychological disorder?

2. Gather Resources

If you wish to submit a top-notch psychology assignment, you must provide updated information in the content. Hence, you must check out various resources like blog posts, websites, and journals at Google Scholar. You can check out Brain Blogger, IQ’s Corner, All in the Mind, Psychology Today, American Psychology Association, etc. You can also check apa.org, learnpsychology.org and explore YouTube channels to learn the latest developments in the psychology field.

For example, did you know that schizophrenia affects 20 million people worldwide?

Once you are done with the process mentioned above, you must focus on the research methods and types (discussed before). Following this, you have to move on to:

3. Creating an Outline of the Paper

This section will take a look at the template of the psychology paper you should follow.

1. The Title Page

In this page, you have to highlight the title of the research, and you have to mention your name. Furthermore, you specify the department, university name, the course you are pursuing, name of the professor, etc.

2. The Abstract

You should fill up this section once you are done writing the entire research paper. Your abstract should reveal the psychology research question, the number of participants in your study. You should also shed light on the method used to investigate the question, results, and implications.

3. The Introduction

Your introductionwould be about unveiling the context of the topic. Commence with a question or a quote. Write a debatable thesis statement to get the professors hooked. Discuss the existing research carried out by other authors. Next, you critically analyze the published works of the other authors in the literature review section. Finally, you state your hypothesis.

4. The Method

Depending upon the topic you choose on psychology, you have to shed light on the participants involved in your research. For instance, you are working on anxiety-related or ADHD issues. You have to talk about your participants, their education level, sex, age, occupation. You must specify the materials used and the procedure you undertook (experimental design, controls, etc.)

5. The Results

Here, you have to discuss the consequences of the methods applied. You should include the results of descriptive and inferential statistical analysis, a summary table, the direction of the effect. You also have to incorporate rejection or retention of the null hypothesis and necessary figures.

6. The Discussion

In this section, you must ask these questions. Did the result support the hypothesis? Were any there confounding variables or was the sample size too small? You must compare the results to the studies highlighted in the Literature Review. You have to be modest with your statements, rather than being expansive. Last but not least, you have to write a summary statement.

Hopefully, you have an insight into writing a psychology paper. If you face issues while, you can buy assignments from writing help services.

4. Paying Attention to the Intervention

In psychology, there are three intervention approaches. These include psychoanalytic approach, cognitive-behavioural approach and the humanistic approach. You must assess the symptoms and medical history of the patient and then choose an approach.

Moreover, you must shed light on the treatment, the response and the effectiveness of the approach. Also mention what is lacking in the treatment procedure. Between 76% and 85% of people with a mental disorder do not receive treatment.

Upon completion, you should:

5. Proofread and Check for Plagiarism

It is important that you check the paper for errors. This involves factual, spelling, grammatical and citation errors. Once you notice them, you should rectify it instantly. If you are new to proofreading and editing, you should take the help of online tools like Grammarly, or Ginger software.

Furthermore, you should check the psychology paper for plagiarism. You should make sure that the paper is 100% original. And to be sure of that, you can take the help of Copyscape, Turnitin or Grammarly.

If you stick to the steps mentioned above, you will have no trouble putting together a quality psychology paper.