About the lecture

In this lecture, we explore the mechanics of the scientific method in research, focusing in particular on: (i) the first step in this process being to establish what you want to investigate, whether this be a new theory or an extension of the research on another person’s theory, before developing a hypothesis; (ii) the importance of specificity within the complex process of generating a hypothesis; (iii) experimental design, data analysis and acceptance of the hypothesis; (iv) the importance of recognising that experiments are always testing the null hypothesis, either accepting (there is no difference/change) or dismissing (there is a difference/change).

About the lecturer

Dr Helena Paterson is a lecturer in the School of Psychology at the University of Glasgow, responsible for teaching both research methods and social psychology. Dr Paterson’s research interests lie in the development of dynamic social events. One focus of this is understanding how human qualities are represented by the human cognitive system and, by extension, how we develop representations of social events and the accompanying stereotypes/biases. Dr Paterson is an advocate of open science, incorporating its principles into her research and teaching. Some of Dr Paterson’s recent publications include ‘Open-source tutorials benefit the field’ (2022) and ‘Data visualization using R for researchers who do not use R’ (2022).