Front Cover -- Half Title Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Brief contents -- Contents -- Guided tour -- Introduction -- Acknowledgements -- Part 1 Basics of research -- 1 Role of research in psychology -- Overview -- 1.1 Introduction -- 1.2 The importance of reading -- 1.3 Evaluating the evidence -- 1.4 Inferring causality -- 1.5 Types of research and the assessment of causality -- 1.6 Practice -- 1.7 Conclusion -- Key points -- Activities -- 2 Aims and hypotheses in research -- Overview -- 2.1 Introduction -- 2.2 Types of study -- 2.3 Aims of research -- 2.4 Research hypotheses

2.5 Four types of hypothesis -- 2.6 Difficulties in formulating aims and hypotheses -- 2.7 Conclusion -- Key points -- Activities -- 3 Variables, concepts and measures -- Overview -- 3.1 Introduction -- 3.2 History of the variable in psychology -- 3.3 Types of variable -- 3.4 Independent and dependent variables -- 3.5 Measurement characteristics of variables -- 3.6 Stevens' theory of scales of measurement -- 3.7 Operationalising concepts and variables -- 3.8 Conclusion -- Key points -- Activities -- 4 Problems of generalisation and decision-making in research: Chance findings and sample size

Overview -- 4.1 Introduction -- 4.2 Universalism -- 4.3 Sampling and generalisation -- 4.4 Statistics and generalisation -- 4.5 Directional and non-directional hypotheses again -- 4.6 More on the similarity between measures of effect (difference) and association -- 4.7 Sample size and size of association -- 4.8 Conclusion -- Key points -- Activities -- 5 Research reports: The total picture -- Overview -- 5.1 Introduction -- 5.2 Overall strategy of report writing -- 5.3 Sections of the research report in detail -- 5.4 Conclusion -- Key points -- Activities -- 6 Improving your quantitative write-up

Overview -- 6.1 Introduction -- 6.2 Poorly written quantitative report -- 6.3 Analysis of the report -- 6.4 Improved version of the report -- 6.5 Conclusion -- Key points -- Activities -- 7 Literature search -- Overview -- 7.1 Introduction -- 7.2 Library classification systems -- 7.3 Electronic databases -- 7.4 Obtaining articles not in your library -- 7.5 Personal bibliographic database software -- 7.6 Conclusion -- Key points -- Activities -- 8 Ethics and data management in research -- Overview -- 8.1 Introduction -- 8.2 Ethics: general principles -- 8.3 Research ethics

8.4 Ethics and publication -- 8.5 How to obtain a participant’s consent -- 8.6 Data management -- 8.7 Conclusion -- Key points -- Activities -- Part 2 Quantitative research methods -- 9 Basic laboratory experiments -- Overview -- 9.1 Introduction -- 9.2 Characteristics of the true or randomised experiment -- 9.3 More advanced research designs -- 9.4 Conclusion -- Key points -- Activity -- 10 Advanced experimental designs -- Overview -- 10.1 Introduction -- 10.2 Multiple levels of the independent variable -- 10.3 Multiple dependent variables -- 10.4 Factorial designs