Your Research

Setting Up Your Research

PSYCH/665 Version 3

University of Phoenix Material

Setting Up Your Research

Respond to the following exercises from Chapter One of The Literature Review in 150 to 200 words each. For the Additional Question, record the research and null hypotheses for your project.

Exercise 1.1: Discovering the Subject of Your Interest or Issue of Inquiry
Exercise 1.2: Understanding the Personal Viewpoint
Exercise 1.3: Selecting the Focus of Your Study
Exercise 1.5: Developing Your Interest Statement

Additional Question: What are your research and null hypotheses?

Exercise 1.1: Discovering the Subject of Your Interest or Issue of Inquiry

The issue of interest that was selected is going to focus on age and drug addiction. According to WebMD (2015) alcohol is often used in intoxicating drinks but is also a flammable liquid. Alcohol can be found in most drinks labelled as adult drinks including beers, wines, and spirits. Some of the components of interest in regards to this topic include what factors encourage or influence alcohol usage and lead to addiction?, What are some methods which are utilized in order to decrease alcohol usage?, What effects of alcohol are there on the human body? The curiosity came about for this question do to the author having direct family members such as the authors mother and sister who both suffer from alcohol addiction. Additionally, alcohol addiction is very common globally. The author is interested in finding information and gathering research which may be utilized in order assist the family members in the author’s family with their addiction to alcohol. It is in the author’s belief that the first up in helping them would be to educate the members about their addiction in order to start the journey to overcome that. Through affective research and approaches individuals that are currently dependent on alcohol can be assisted with their addiction.

Exercise 1.2: Understanding the Personal Viewpoint

The previous knowledge held by the author in regards to alcohol and addiction includes how alcohol impacts an individual’s brain causing changes to the individual’s behavior and thought processes. Alcohol addiction may also be known as alcohol abuse or alcoholism. There a variety of factors which can influence an individual’s alcohol abuse including the individual’s emotional instability and the individual’s social environment. The personal experiences that the author has in regards to this issue come from the authors mother and sister both suffering from alcohol addiction. The author’s entire life the the author’s mother has always been drinking a fact of which is now catching up to her in the author’s mother’s old age. It is the belief of the author that a person can eliminate or decrease their alcohol usage and the amount they drink through seeking help. There’s no quick change or solution to an addiction as it takes time. Though some individuals have better luck with quitting addictions and are able to do a faster than other individuals. The authors opinion is that through education or counseling and individual about alcohol addiction they may be able to decrease their usage. This opinion may be debated. The social environment of the author growing up due to the alcohol addiction of the authors mother has led to a predisposition of alcohol abuse in all of the author siblings since they all observed and were present when the alcohol was being used a long with seen firsthand how alcohol can affect an individual’s behavior. The author believes that they will be able to isolate as well as identify their personal opinions, bias, feelings, and intuitions through gathering of statistical and factual information on the subject. In order to help an individual with their addiction the information used must be reliable and valid and should not contain bias.

Exercise 1.3: Selecting the Focus of Your Study

Alcohol addictions focus is in factors which influence alcohol addiction and the effects of it on a person’s body. In studying this addiction the author will be looking at both groups and individuals. The reasoning behind this is because not all individuals make experience the same mental processes or behaviors when they suffer from alcohol addiction. The groups and individuals the author plans to study are people who have reached adulthood recently as well as older individuals that have suffered from alcohol addiction. These two groups of people will be important in helping to identify the causes and factors that lead to alcohol addiction. A variety of individual start using alcohol when the first enter adulthood. Many individuals who are older have suffered from alcohol addiction or are still suffering from the addiction years after they started. Commonly alcohol addiction affects young adults who recently become legal to drink. For this fact many of the young adults tend to be surrounded by older individuals in their life and previously abused alcohol and the young adults simply wait until they reach the legal in age limit in which to purchase their own alcoholic beverages and follow the individuals who have been in their lives using the alcohol.

Exercise 1.5: Developing Your Interest Statement

The main concern of the research being done will be on factors which influence alcohol addiction. The author will be looking at alcohol addiction in individuals through the perspective of studies done researchers have studied the effects of alcohol abuse on individuals suffering from it. The vantage point being used within the research will be in debt psychology with contributions that made the research important such as studies on brain functioning while an individual is using drugs as well as the effects of the drugs on the individual psychological processing. It is in the belief of the author is that people are led into alcohol addiction through their environment in their age. The author also believes the alcohol addiction may be illuminated or at least minimized through affective education and research on the topic. The bias held by the author include ways in which a person may eliminate or lessen their alcohol addiction. The author will prevent the tendencies of bias from affecting the neutral stance which is necessary for researcher by basing any information received on reliable and valid information. Additionally, it will also be avoided through reviewing the different trends in information as well as not second guessing the information which has been proven to be accurate.

Additional Question: What are your research and null hypotheses?

The research question that will be done is that does environmental influence in age influence an individual’s alcohol consumption thus leading the individual to alcohol addiction? The research hypothesis that they offer will be using will consist of environmental influences and age in relation to alcohol consumption. The null hypothesis will be that environmental influences in age have no impact or influence on the alcohol consumption of an individual.

Reference:

National Counscil on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, INC. (n.d.). Signs and symptoms. Retrieved from https://ncadd.org/learn-about-alcohol/signs-and-symptoms

WebMD. (2015). Substance Abuse and Addiction. Retrieved from

http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/addiction/alcohol-abuse-and-dependence-topic-overview

Your Research 1

For a hypothesis to be termed a scientific hypothesis, it has to be something that can be supported or refuted through carefully crafted experimentation or observation.

Credit: Sergey Nivens | Shutterstock

A scientific hypothesis is the initial building block in the scientific method. Many describe it as an “educated guess,” based on prior knowledge and observation. While this is true, the definition can be expanded. A hypothesis also includes an explanation of why the guess may be correct, according to National Science Teachers Association.

Hypothesis basics

A hypothesis is a suggested solution for an unexplained occurrence that does not fit into current accepted scientific theory. The basic idea of a hypothesis is that there is no pre-determined outcome. For a hypothesis to be termed a scientific hypothesis, it has to be something that can be supported or refuted through carefully crafted experimentation or observation. This is called falsifiability and testability, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.

A key function in this step in the scientific method is deriving predictions from the hypotheses about the results of future experiments, and then performing those experiments to see whether they support the predictions.

A hypothesis is usually written in the form of an if/then statement, according to the University of California. This statement gives a possibility (if) and explains what may happen because of the possibility (then). For example, if garlic repels fleas, then a dog is given garlic every day will not get fleas.

Testing a hypothesis

The primary trait of a hypothesis is that something can be tested and that those tests can be replicated, according to Midwestern State University. It is often examined by multiple scientists to ensure the integrity and veracity of the experiment. This process can take years, and in many cases hypotheses do not go any further in the scientific method as it is difficult to gather sufficient supporting evidence.

"As a field biologist my favorite part of the scientific method is being in the field collecting the data, but what really makes that fun is knowing that you are trying to answer an interesting question so the first step in identifying questions and generating possible answers (hypotheses) is also very important and is a creative process. Then once you collect the data you analyze it to see if your hypothesis is supported or not," Jaime Tanner, a professor of biology at Marlboro College, told Live Science.

A null hypothesis is the name given to a hypothesis that is possibly false or has no effect. Often, during a test, the scientist will study another branch of the idea that may work, which is called an alternative hypothesis,