Themes and Issues Module

1. What is “Science”? (and the characteristics of scientific work.)

7. Where does the thought of ‘science’ take you? (Source: einstein.stanford.edu)

9. ‘ I ‘ Interior individual ‘ IT ’ Exterior Individual – Objective measures ‘ We ’ Collective Cultural ‘ ITS ’ Social system Environment (Adapted and developed from different writing of Ken Wilber.) Psychodynamics. Instincts. Ego. Id. Intrapersonal. Phenomenology. Self-actualization. Experimental psychology. Cognitive psychology. ‘ Brain’. ‘Organism’. Behaviourism. Interpersonal. Relationships. ‘ Object relations’ theory Group psychology? Family ‘system’. ‘Super ego’? Humanistic psychology. Cross-cultural psychology. ‘ Generalized’ psychology. Organisational psychology. Source of the ‘super ego’?

12. The ‘research cycle’. The ‘scientific process’. Theory Question Hypothesis Prediction Identifying a method appropriate to the research question. Data gathering Controlled conditions. Defined methods and standards. Data analysis A means appropriate to both research question and data. Results Data? Proven theory? New theory? Something else? New research ideas? (Start the cycle again??) Report results

23. Thinking Feeling Sensing Intuition Analytical Scientist Conceptual Theorist Particular Humanist Conceptual Humanist (Reason and Rowan 1981:p45)

25. How does psychology ‘do science’? Funder 2010 p21-58

26. Challenging our views of science? Source: alf.ifj.edu.pl

31. Summary (2) Characteristics of science ? The Research Cycle …. Meeting certain ‘types’ of goals – see below : Explanation Description Prediction Control Via a particular professional process : Verifiable Cumulative Public Parsimonious

32. The joys of ‘why?’ and ‘how?’

33. Curiosity in action?

34. Science as a form of ‘evolution in action’?