Introduction
Psychology as a branch of knowledge
is devoted to the study of behaviour of human beings and animals. To this end,
the relevance of psychology cannot be doubted, more importantly that the well
trained teachers will need it to understand the behaviour of his/her students
in relation to the learning process. Ability to understand various techniques
of carrying out investigation in the field of psychology will equally assist
the teachers in resolving emergent educational problems. All the points
mentioned above are the focus of this article.
Definition of Psychology
Psychology affects every facet of our lives. A human being
usually exhibits moods of joy and anger, have different learning ability and
interact differently. When all these happen, we are eager in finding the
circumstances that are surrounding these actions and make judgment in our own
way. Psychology provides clues to these phenomena in a more scientific way.
Therefore psychology is a science subject which seeks
to comprehend, predict and control the behaviour of man and lower animals. As
the society is getting more complex, psychology assumes a vital position in
solving human problems.
Psychologist uses scientific methods to understand why
people behave the way they do and develop principles and theories about them.
Psychology is premised on logical ways for knowing, explaining, controlling and
improving behaviour. Psychologists attempt to find answers to
- how human
beings and animals receive stimuli from their environment and their perceptions
about such stimuli - how organisms learn and remember experiences
- how
they differ in their characteristics and - cope with various problems in life
in order to understand the complex nature of organism and to contribute to
better standard of living of organisms.
Methods of
Investigation in Psychology
Survey
Method
This is one of the most
widely used techniques in
psychology. It is a method of field observation. In this method, the researcher
uses questionnaire or interview to obtain data from his/her respondents. The survey method is very important
because the
questions that are asked can be very pertinent to genuine problems and the responses
can be got from the persons affected by the
problems. The problem of this method is that the respondents may be biased when
giving their responses.
Test
Method
Test is one of the
methods used to elicit responses from the subjects. It is used to collect information about
respondent’s abilities, interests, attitudes and accomplishments.We can use test to seek information from a large
number of people within a
short time. Test method is more objective and therefore provides accurate data
than questionnaire or interview.
Observational Method
This is the careful study of human and animal’s behaviour and record your findings simultaneously. In observing organism behaviour, the researcher needs to be highly skillful so that he/she can observe and record accurately in order to avoid subjective report. One of the disadvantages of this method is that the subject may decide not to show his/her true behaviour, if he/she knows that he/she is being studied.
Experimental
Method
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This is a method in which the investigator makes use of both the main and control subjects in his/her findings. In this case, the researcher attempts to give special treatment to the experimental subject or group. i.e. the organism which is being studied is taken to undergo certain laboratory procedures and conditions, while the control subject or group is not put under any special treatment or condition. It only provides a baseline against which to compare the experimental group.
Case Histories Method
Longitudinal Method
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