Tooltip Categories: Site glossary

referring to an inanimate object (e.g., a planet) as if it is a person

(Read about personification)

An abstract summarises the key features of a research report or other scholarly article. The abstract is placed ahead of the main text, and is an expected part of many forms of research writing.

Read about abstracts in scholalrly writing

the right, embodied in law, for an author or artist to control publication of their work

Read more about copyright

a real effect which is not recognised as a positive outcome on statistical testing because it is not so unlikely to occur by chance to be excluded as a chance event

The occurrence of false negatives can be reduced by using a less restricitive confidence level as a criterion of significance (e.g., p <0.25) but this increases the frequency of false positives

a result which reaches statistical significance, and so is taken to probably not be just a chance effect, that occurs by chance. The use of inferential statistics means that is is inevitable that some positive results in studies are false positives

The occurrence of false positives can be reduced by using a more restrictive confidence level as a criterion of significance (e.g., p <0.01) but this increases the frequency of false negatives

In confirmatory research there is a hypothesis that is tested. Usually the hypothesis can be worded either in a positive or negative sense (e.g., eye colour will be associated with scores on the chemical kinetics test; eye colour will not be associated with scores on the chemical kinetics test). The choice of the hypothesis that an effect will be found (i.e., reaches statistical significance) is called the null hypothesis.

think aloud (or talk aloud) is a data collection technique where researchers observe participants undertake a task whilst trying to verbalise as much as possible of their thinking about the task

Teaching can be considered 'making the unfamiliar familiar'. Teachers have a range of techniques to help make the unfamiliar familiar when that which is to be taught about (the unfamiliar) cannot simple be directly demonstrated and passed around in the classroom (consider the big bang, a black hole, a mitochondria, plate tectonics, d-level splitting, …)

Read about how teachers make the unfamiliar familiar

In everyday language 'significant' means important. In research however it often refers specifically to statistical significance – whether a result is unlikely enough that statistical tests show it is unlikely to be a chance effect at some level of confidence (e.g., 0.05 – i.e., that there is less than a 0.05% chance of the result being obtained by chance).

Testing for statistical significance is a key feature of experimental research, and, to avoid confusion, claims that a finding is 'significant' should be limited to those cases where testing shows a result is statistically significant.

A vignette is a brief account that offers an engaging 'sketch' of a situation or context. Vignettes may be used to complement and illustrate/introduce more technical accounts

Read an example of a research vignette

Read about writing-up research

Research interviewing involves a class of techniques for collecting data based upon engaging informants in conversations with various levels of structuring

Read more about research interviews

refers to individual differences in neural functioning – given that neural abilities and traits vary in a population just as physical traits (height, hair colour, skin tone, etc.) The term is sometimes used when referring to specific conditions (ADHD, dyslexia, synesthesia, etc.) but can also refer to the general variations to be expected in any population.