The overarching point of this article will be to convey that behavioural psychology may be out-of-fashion, but still has many things to contribute to modern psychology.

All science is ultimately born of philosophy (see Pepper, 1942) and therefore there is no reason why this science should play second fiddle to any other. However, in the rat race to make strides in the science of behaviour, principles of science are often discarded in favour of convenience. The dominant school of thought in psychology at present is cognitivism. This school adopts a predominantly top-down approach to psychology. This involves simplifying phenomena into their perceived component parts, in order to study them. This phenomenon may constitute a set back for the way research is conducted and human behavior ultimately conceptualized.  Allow me to illustrate why this is a problem.

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Graphics and figures we design are the first thing editors and other readers look at when browsing through our paper. Hence, it is prominent to be efficient in conveying complex information so the included data would be more concise and clear than the descriptive text itself. If you do it right, not only your chances for publication will increase, but it will as well help your audience to understand your ideas, objectives and results in a better way. So, in short, keep them interested. Want to know how to do it? I bet that the answer is yes. So, follow me!  Read the rest of this entry »

The topic of this bulletin arose from a talk given by Dr. Anna Bagnoli, who had used a variety of visual methods in addition to verbal interviews in order to holistically study young people’s identities.  Intrigued by the question of how such data could be collected and analysed to contribute to understandings of psychological topics, the author of this post recently carried out an interview with Dr. Bagnoli on behalf of the Open University Psychological Society (Rouse, 2013).  In this bulletin post the author will share what she has learnt from this interview and by researching the use of visual methods to explore experience and meaning.

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Have you ever wondered which scientific journal was the first of its kind? Or even further, why there are scientific periodicals at all? Probably not, since today’s advances in science are occurring so rapidly, the researcher doesn’t have the time or energy to dwell into the history of scientific literature. Although, this being true, it is undoubtedly useful for the scientist to have the fullest perspective on what they are doing. And, with this in mind, this article aims to shed some light into the historical roots and purposes of scientific journals and publishing, going back to Ancient Greece, the Middle Ages and the invention of the printing press. Read the rest of this entry »

I can’t keep secrets. I’m not referring to my friend’s hush-hushes or any information that may harm others in any shape or form. I am talking about lessons and experiences in life that are worth sharing with others. For example, when I made a mistake of choosing an overly complex research question for my dissertation, I decided to write an article to tell everyone about it, so that others won’t make the same mistake as I did. This habit of mine, I suspect, comes from having been immersing myself in the world of scientific research for almost a decade. You see, the very basis of a researcher’s job is to develop new knowledge that contributes towards human’s understanding of the world, and to share these new information with everyone.

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For a present-day psychology graduate it can sometimes seem like one has entered the profession at the wrong time. Last year shone a glaring spotlight on fraud and misconduct in scientific research, the Reproducibility Project and Psych File Drawer began to prise open a lack of replication in psychological literature, and there was criticism and concern over an increasing number of unpaid research assistant/assistant psychologist jobs in the U.K. However this self-reflection and criticism should be seen as an opportunity for correction, and ultimately, a gradual change within the profession.

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Some of you might have asked themselves this question a couple of times when checking out the literature of a specific field. Imagine the following situation: You have completed your research and now you want to compare your results to research done previously. You finally found the suitable article, have the necessary effect sizes/power and can start comparing. But wait: Who actually tells you that the reported results are correct? Would you happen to notice if the results had been influenced by factors which are sometimes not even visible to the authors themselves? The probability of you detecting them, are tiny, especially as you only have certain information of how the study has been done and what elements have been removed. It is hard to digest, but most research findings, even those reported in high quality journals, are incorrect. Try to imagine the impact this situation has on your education and your research such as research in general.

In the following post I want to discuss multiple factors of why and how research results can be false and want to outline some aspects of how the situation might be improved. The main aspects are thereby retrieved from Ioannidis essay (2005). Read the rest of this entry »

Journal articles are read by researchers or students for various reasons, but mainly, for reviewing for conferences, classes, research projects, or simply to keep up with the latest developments in one’s field of interest. However, effective reading skills are rarely taught or brought up for discussion as a prominent issue that needs more attention. Thus, many of us spend hundreds of useless hours trying to master this skill. Why not to save ourselves time and effort by following just few simple steps?

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Publishing in an APA journal might seem like an unattainable goal for someone who is still an undergraduate or master student. However, if you have good research, and supervisors who support you, there is a great chance you will achieve your goal.  I was lucky enough to perform my final year dissertation with two fantastic supervisors, and it was this research that later went on to become the journal article being published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance. However, it was a very long road to travel down which I will re – travel with you in the following paragraphs of this post sharing the experiences I had.

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The past couple of years have been somewhat tumultuous for psychology. With the revelation of several high profile cases of fraud, the field has come under scrutiny, not least from psychologists themselves. Most notably, Simmons, Nelson and Simonsohn (2011) showed how the amount of possible decisions in the research process and flexibility researchers normally have can make finding significant findings increasingly likely (see their paper for recommendations to counteract this). It is likely that there are many cases of false positives (or Type 1 error) in the psychological literature (and other bodies of literature). Such errors in the literature, whether resulting from fraud or cultural norms in research practice, are difficult to remove due to the combination of the reluctance of journals to publish exact replications (see previous post on publication bias) and the reluctance of journals to publish null results (which exacerbates the file drawer effect). Thankfully, some initiatives have been established to counter this risk to the credibility of psychology in the form of systematic efforts at carrying out and publishing replications. However, negative attitudes towards replication remain. Many established researchers do not see any incentive in replication (Makel, Plucker & Hegarty, 2012). It is a waste of time that could be spent on their own projects and is perceived as more likely to cause frustration in their colleagues then be rewarded with a publication. This is where you, the students, can step in. Carrying out a replication is a great way for a student to hone his or her research skills, while providing a valuable service to psychology. Before exploring the role students could have in this issue, let’s examine exactly what replication is, the situation of replication in psychology currently, and the efforts that have been made to advocate for it.

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