22 CHAPTER 1
At this point, you would want to write up exactly what you did, why you did it,
how you did it, and what you found. If others can replicate your research (meaning, do
exactly the same study over again and get the same results), it gives much more support
to your findings. This allows others to predict behavior based on your findings and to
use the results of those findings to modify or control behavior, the last goal in psychology.
Replication of a study’s results is not always an easy task, and some evidence suggests
editors of peer-reviewed journals have tended to publish positive research results overall
and not embrace direct replications of “old” knowledge (Nosek et al., 2012). Even when
direct replication studies have been published, some results have not been as strong
or did not reach the same level of statistical significance as the originals (Open Science
Collaboration, 2015). While these and related concerns have been referred to as a replica-
bility crisis in psychology, the field is responding to the challenge. There are focused and
continued efforts of researchers to test and retest “what we think we know,” providing
additional evidence for many areas and suggesting we still have much work to do in
other areas of psychology (Open Science Collaboration, 2015).
This might be a good place to make a distinction between questions that can be
scientifically or empirically studied and those that cannot. For example, “What is the
meaning of life?” is not a question that can be studied using the scientific or empirical
approach. Empirical questions are those that can be tested through direct observation
or experience. For example, “Has life ever existed on Mars?” is a question that scientists
are trying to answer through measurements, experimentation, soil samples, and other
methods. Eventually they will be able to say with some degree of confidence that life
could have existed or could not have existed. That is an empirical question, because it
can be supported or disproved by gathering real evidence. The meaning of life, however,
is a question of belief for each person. One does not need proof to believe, but scientists
need proof (in the form of objectively gathered evidence) to know. Questions that involve
beliefs and values are best left to philosophy and religion.
In psychology, researchers try to find the answers to empirical questions. They can
use a variety of research methods depending on the scientific question to be answered, as
seen in the video Research Methods.replicate
in research, repeating a study or
experiment to see if the same results
will be obtained in an effort to demon-
strate reliability of results. Watch the V i d e o^ Research Methods
CC