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PYC3704 – Psychological Research Topic 1 Inferential Statistics – concerned with inferring numerical properties of statistical populations from sample data Theory:  Accounts for facts and suggest how they are related to each other. A framework of ideas that provides an explanation of something  The theory – if true – implies what we should observe under certain specific circumstances Psychological research: Testing theories of human behaviour / testing of theories against observations  Purpose is to gather and organise data  Build theories and test them empirically, through observation Theory: A network of postulated relations between constructs / concepts / variables Constructs:  building blocks of theory  theoretical in nature  deliberately created / proposed to explain certain observations  often refer to a hypothetical aspect of a person / situation  cannot be observed, has to be inferred from behaviour  i.e. anxiety = sweat, empty sensation in stomach, heart palpitations are all symptoms caused by unseen underlying process  Anxiety = LATENT variable - hidden / intervening  Behaviour instances of sweating / palpitations = MANIFEST variables  Variable aka indicators / referents / observable consequences / implications  Based on the observable behaviour of an abstract construct / concept – we can derive an anxiety score  To arrive at a score – we must provide a measured operational definition of the construct; a measurement model for each construct  By identifying observable behavioural instances of a construct – one can measure it