Brief description of the methods of scientific research in psychology. Brief description of the methods (means) of standardization

Assumes

creation of an integral structure of interconnected views, ideas and facts. The fundamental difference from the ordinary is the mandatory need for critical reflection on all the proposed ideas and evidence, as well as the desire for objectivity of views and a strict methodology, both in verifying the facts obtained and in knowledge itself. There are research methods. In this article, we will focus on the latter in more detail. However, first let us turn to the obligatory characteristic of the scientific approach.

Popper's criterion

This is the so-called criterion of falsifiability of theoretical research. The author of the concept is the famous modern British thinker Karl Popper. His idea is that any theory, in order to truly be called scientific, must be subjected to practical experimental verification. For example, scientific and pedagogical research involves the study of psychological and pedagogical processes in the formation of personality and objective patterns in learning. And as a result, the derivation of effective educational methodologies. In this case, the criterion will be the reflection of real results in the application of methodologies derived from research.

Theoretical research methods

Any activity, if it claims to be scientific, must include not only criteria for testing ideas experimentally, but also an effective methodology for building theories and searching for new facts. For a long time - since the time of ancient thinkers - empirical and theoretical methods of research have been separated. The theoretical level in science consists in an objective reflection of ongoing processes, phenomena, internal patterns and relationships that are achieved through methods of processing practical data obtained through observations, experiments, and so on. Thus, theoretical research methods are a kind of superstructure over empirical ones. The latter are represented by sensory forms expressed in information received directly by human senses and special devices. Heaping is not a goal in itself, its ultimate goal is systematization, as well as further construction of patterns, theories and ideas about the world around. Theoretical research methods are a logical abstraction that is created by creating scientific hypotheses and theories based on existing knowledge. Methods of theoretical research have a number of different options:

Abstraction is a process based on abstraction from some properties of the subject in the course of its cognition in order to deeply explore its specific side. Examples of abstraction results include curvature, color, beauty, and so on. Abstraction has several purposes. For example, it aims to find commonalities. At the same time, signs that distinguish one object from another will fall out of their attention. Attention will be focused only on what is common between these objects. Another goal is systematization and generalization. As you can see, this is different from the previous goal, as the focus is on differences that allow you to divide objects into groups. In addition, abstraction can be aimed at creating a pattern and at the clarity of the wording.

Formalization

In this case, knowledge is displayed in a sign symbolic form, that is, they take the form of conditional values ​​and formulas. The use of special symbolism is a necessary method of how a person reflects reality. Formalization is part of formal logic.

Analogy

An analogy is a conclusion about the similarity between two objects in some way, which is based on identity in characteristic features. The knowledge gained after considering a certain object is transferred to another, less studied and accessible object. However, the analogy does not provide reliable knowledge. If true by analogy, it does not give reason to believe that the conclusion will be true.

Object Modeling

The object is studied using abstract models. The acquired knowledge is transferred to the studied original. The model makes it possible to make a reasonable and more complete forecast, as well as to optimize the movement towards the result. However, for this you need to have already identified trends, historical experience and expert assessments. The model and the original must have a known resemblance in terms of function and physical characteristics. This similarity will allow transferring the information obtained as a result of the modeling study to the original.

mental modeling

In this case, mental images are used. In addition to mental modeling, there is computer and symbolic modeling.

Idealization

In this case, certain concepts are created for objects that do not actually exist, but have a prototype. An example would be an ideal gas, a sphere, and so on. An ideal object can be described as an idea that is expressed in the sign system of a scientific artificial language and underlies a scientific theory.

The methods of psychology are certain means and methods by which scientists can obtain reliable and truthful data about a particular mental phenomenon. This information is then used in the process of developing scientific theory and practical advice.

Typology B. G. Ananiev

There is the most popular classification of methods of psychology for B. G. Ananiev.

The first group includes organizational methods. It is represented by a comparative (different groups are compared according to some selected criterion - gender, age, activity), longitudinal (multiple studies of the same respondents are carried out for a long time) and a complex method (the object is studied by scientists from different scientific fields, different methods are used). tricks).

The empirical methods of psychology belong to the second group. They are represented by observation and self-observation, experiment, psychodiagnostic means (tests, questionnaires, interviews, surveys, conversations, sociometry), analysis of activity products and biographical method.

The third group focuses on the methods by which data can be processed. They include quantitative and qualitative methods.

The fourth group represents the interpretative methods of psychology. The use of genetic (the process of analyzing the object of study from the point of view of its development, the allocation of some phases, stages, etc.) and structural methods (establishing links in structure between all the traits and properties of the individual).

Observation

Methods of developmental psychology include this way of knowing reality. For observation, it is typical to conduct it under normal conditions for the subject, without any impact on him. Everything that the respondent does, says, is recorded in detail, and then amenable to analysis. You can record everything or choose some moment. The use of a continuous record is characteristic of the study of personality as a whole, and a selective record is used to fix certain manifestations of psychic reality. Methods of general psychology are also represented by self-observation.

Observation is characterized by the observance of certain conditions, namely, it is distinguished by purposefulness (a clear definition of the purpose and tasks of the study); naturalness (mostly observed persons do not know that they are being investigated); the presence of the plan; exact observance of the object and subject; limiting the elements that are the object of observation; development of stable criteria to evaluate signs; ensuring clarity and reliability.

The survey also represents the methods of psychology. It lies in the fact that data can be obtained as a result of answers to questions by the most subjects. The survey can be conducted orally, in writing or freely.

Experiment

The main methods of psychology include such a thorough technique as experiment. The advantage of the method is the elimination of side variables that can affect the object of the survey and change it. Also, the experimenter can purposefully change the conditions and watch the results of these changes, how they affect the course of mental processes, human reactions. The experiment can be repeated several times under the same conditions and carried out with a large number of people.

Often methods of developmental psychology also include an experiment. It is ascertaining when some features of the psyche or a personal quality that already exists are revealed. Another type - formative - is a special influence on respondents in order to change a certain attribute.

Questioning and sociometry

These ways of knowing reality are not defined as the main methods of psychology, but they bring a lot of useful information. The questionnaire provides for the answers of the subject to the planned questions. In order for the data obtained as a result of this method to be reliable and reliable, the survey should be repeated and the results monitored using other methods.

J. L. Moreno is considered the author of sociometry. It is used to study the social psychology of small groups. Several questions are formulated that are adequate to a particular group, to which the respondent must answer. For example, who from the team will you invite to your birthday party? Who won't you invite to your birthday party? You can specify one, two, three people, depending on the purpose of the study.

Testing

The presented method is intermediate between the subjectivity and objectivity of the study. Testing also has its subspecies. For example, questionnaire tests, which are mainly used to study personality traits. The respondent, consciously or unconsciously, can influence the final result.

Task tests are used in the study of intelligence. There are also projective methods that involve free interpretation, which is quite dangerous for the reliability and reliability of the data. Such techniques are often used to test children or to measure emotional states (Luscher test, Rorschach, TAT).

Other Methods

Psychology, having a high level of subjectivity, borrows mathematical methods of processing data so that the results are reliable and valid. An analysis of the products of activity is often used, for example, paintings, compositions, because a person projects his mental reality in them.

A scientist, depending on the object of study and goals, can choose an arsenal of methods and techniques in order to study a mental phenomenon to the fullest extent.

Of the four groups of methods we have distinguished, let us characterize organizational methods in most detail, since their methodological significance in the general system of research is completely unsatisfactorily presented in modern psychological literature.

The most established and experimentally tested organizational method is the comparative method, which is modified in various psychological disciplines.

In evolutionary biopsychology, which is also called comparative, research is organized by comparing (simultaneously or sequentially) different stages of evolution or different levels of development according to certain parameters. The design and implementation of such a study over a long period of time and by various methods (especially observation and experiments) is a very complex matter. Initially, the comparative method was used for the purpose of studying the phylogenesis of behavior and mental activity, but then it was specially applied to study ontogenetic evolution, for example, in primates (Ladygina-Kots, 1935; Tikh, 1966).

The comparative method as a general method of organizing research, guiding its course and regulating the interaction of all methods, is currently widely used in general psychology (comparison of various contingents of subjects, or “samples”), in social psychology (comparison of various types of small groups, demographic, professional , ethnographic and other contingents), in pathopsychology and psychodefectology (comparison of patients with healthy people, people with defects - sensory, motor, intellectual - with normally seeing, hearing, etc.).

In child psychology and psychogerontology, the comparative method appeared in a special form of the method of "age" or "transverse" sections. The vast majority of research in this area was carried out using this particular method, although they differ in experimental methods and techniques, in problems and theoretical constructions. Comparative age studies can cover different phases of one or two adjacent periods (for example, childhood and adolescence), but in relation to the entire complex of phenomena studied (for example, perception or thinking). These are the fundamental works of J. Piaget (Flavell, 1967), including one of the most significant in the field of the genesis of thinking (Piaget, Inelder, 1963).

Another modification of the age-comparative method is a selective comparison of individual periods, carried out with the aim of revealing the evolutionary-involutionary characteristics of the dynamics of the studied mental process. One of the most interesting and instructive studies of this kind is the series of studies by A. A. Smirnov and his collaborators on the problem of memory, which compared the features of some mnemonic processes in preschoolers, schoolchildren, and adults (Smirnov, 1967).

A complete cycle of age comparisons is presented in our collective work devoted to ontogenetic changes in perceptual constants (Anan'ev, Dvoryashina, Kudryavtseva, 1968). The main periods of human life (from early childhood to old age) were compared according to the parameter of visual perception - constancy. The value of this parameter as an indicator of individual development was revealed by the method of age, or transverse, sections.

In another cycle of our research, the method of age sections was applied to determine the ontogenetic transformations of the complex of visuospatial functions (field of vision, visual acuity, linear eye). Using this method, both the features of maturation and aging of each of these functions and the types of interfunctional correlations in different periods of life were revealed (Ananiev, Rybalko, 1964; Aleksandrova, 1965; Rybalko, 1969).

In parallel with the comparative method in developmental and genetic psychology, the longitudinal method was developed (the “long method”), but it was used on an incomparably smaller scale. One of the symposiums of the XVIII International Psychological Congress (“Studying the course of the child's mental development” - organizer R. Zazzo) was devoted to a special discussion of the principles of constructing this method. The generalization of some experience of its application allowed R. Zazzo to evaluate the effectiveness of the longitudinal method in comparison with the method of age or cross sections. It is shown that the longitudinal method is more sensitive in determining the possibilities of mental development. Its advantage over the method of age cuts is manifested in the solution of two problems: 1) predicting the further course of mental evolution, the scientific substantiation of mental prognosis, and 2) determining the genetic relationships between the phases of mental development.

The longitudinal method involves multiple examinations of the same individuals over a fairly long period of their life path, sometimes measured in tens of years. It eliminates such a serious drawback of the cross-sectional method (comparative-age), as the equation of all individuals of a given age and a given population. In fact, these individuals may not end up at the same point in ontogenetic evolution, since they complete their development at different rates and in different ways. Compared with the cross-sectional method, the longitudinal method is a more complex and individualized method of organizing research in the field of developmental, genetic and differential psychology.

The path of continuous tracing of the course of mental development is predetermined by a program designed for a number of years. It should be noted that the shorter the observation period, the less effective the use of the longitudinal method. Long-term observation and constant reproduction of certain functional tests (tests) comparable by certain criteria to experimental tasks, while using other methods (biographical, analysis of activity products, etc.) - all this characterizes the polyoperative composition of the longitudinal method as a way of organizing a long-term research cycle. The immediate result of its application is an individual monograph or some set of such monographs devoted to the course of mental development, covering several phases of periods of human life. Comparison of a number of such individual monographs makes it possible to sufficiently fully represent the range of fluctuations in age norms and the moments of transition from one phase of development to another.

However, the construction of a series of functional tests and experimental methods, periodically repeated in the study of the same person, is an extremely difficult matter, since the adaptation of the subject to the conditions of the experiment, special training, etc., can influence the pattern of development. In addition, the narrow base of such a study, limited to a small number of objects, does not give grounds for constructing age-related syndromes, which is successfully carried out using the comparative method of "cross sections". R. Zazzo took this circumstance into account when he recommended combining both methods in genetic psychology (Zazzo, 1966).

A similar combination of longitudinal and comparative methods is also useful in other areas of psychology, especially in differential psychology, where the reliability of an individual psychological diagnosis is of paramount importance. In clinical psychology (pathopsychology), a casuistic analysis based on longitudinal data is usually superimposed on pathopsychological syndromes obtained by the comparative method (when studying patients with various neuropsychiatric diseases or comparing them with healthy people). In sports psychology, longitudinal methods of organizing research are of particular importance in combination with data from a mass survey of athletes of various specialties, qualifications, length of service, etc.

Both comparative and longitudinal methods can be used in the study of individual psychophysiological functions, mental processes, states, personality traits. The scale of the organization of the entire cycle of work, the composition of the methods and the technique used depend on the subject of the study. It should be taken into account, however, that in modern conditions, psychological research is increasingly included in complex systems that involve many other sciences that are necessary for solving urgent practical problems (for example, the scientific organization of labor). The exceptional importance of human factors in various types of social practice (from the organization of production to the mass service of the population) determines the importance of such complex, i.e., interdisciplinary research.

Like the comparative or longitudinal method, which does not at all represent any theory in itself, but is a way of organizing a research cycle, the complex method in itself is not yet a concept of the integrity of the studied phenomena, but, undoubtedly, is aimed at building such a research cycle that provides would in the future justify the secret concept.

The program of a comprehensive interdisciplinary research is united by the commonality of the object under study and the division of functions between individual disciplines, periodic comparison of data and their generalization, mainly relating to relationships and dependencies between phenomena of various kinds (for example, physical and mental development, the social status of a person and its characterological properties, economic indicators productivity and individual style of work, etc.). Sociological-psychological, economic-ergonomic, anthropological-psychophysiological and other complex studies impose special requirements on the construction of optimal research modes for the operational management of a heterogeneous composition of methods by which a large amount of material is extracted and processed (especially statistically). The results of such studies provide the basis for appropriate conclusions about the improvement of certain areas of practice.

The methodology and technique of complex research is just beginning to be developed (Man and Society. Vol. I-XIII, 1966-1973). However, given the growing importance of psychology in the system of sciences and the interaction between them, special attention should be paid to the organization of complex research in the field of production, mass services, health care and, of course, education and upbringing, which are of paramount importance. Complex associations of psychologists, teachers and pediatricians, physiologists and anthropologists, methodologists of different profiles can be especially useful for ensuring the unity of pedagogical influences and optimal relationships between education, training and development (Initial education ..., 1968; Ananiev, 1974).

Among the empirical methods of psychology, with the help of which the facts of research are obtained, objective observation (continuous or selective) is of primary importance, the methodology of which has recently undergone a significant transformation due to the use of various fixation and other technical means both for observation and for processing the data obtained.

About self-observation as a specific method of psychology and as the main tool of idealistic introspectionism, there are diametrically opposed opinions of the opponents and apologists of this method. For us, self-observation is not a methodological, but a methodological problem, which still awaits systematic study and technical improvements.

There is no doubt that the very possibility of self-observation, that is, the level of self-analysis, is an indicator of a person's mental development, reflecting the features of the formation of his self-consciousness. However, one should not put an equal sign between self-observation and a special study of self-consciousness. Like all phenomena of mental activity, self-consciousness is objectified in activity, in the real positions of the individual and her actions, in the level of claims and the dynamics of relations with others, in various types of communication. On the other hand, self-observation acts as a component of many other methods in the study of mental reactions, acts of behavior, forms of activity in the form of a verbal report.

Nevertheless, it is obvious that self-observation as an observational method has a special meaning in studying the dynamics of consciousness, which is both a subjective reflection of objective reality and an internal method of human self-understanding; self-consciousness as a subjective program of the personality and its self-regulation.

In this regard, the methods and data of mediated self-observation (diaries, autobiographical materials, correspondence, etc.) are of particular value. In various fields of psychology, self-observation data are used in accordance with the subject and general organization of the study. In medical practice, the material of a subjective anamnesis is always used, compared with the data of a clinical and laboratory study (objective anamnesis).

In all types of applied psychology - from labor psychology to cosmic psychology - self-observation is used in various modifications and in connection with other, objective methods. Of particular importance is the description of well-being in various states of activity, the dynamics of ideas and experiences, and behavioral motives (Lange, 1893).

Experimental methods in psychology are so diverse that none of the manuals on experimental psychology can provide a complete description of all experimental methods, since these are complex systems of special operations and procedures carried out in specially equipped chambers and cabins using complex instruments, apparatus and other technical devices. . The first form of experimental method in psychology is the so-called laboratory experiment. This designation, of course, is purely formal and makes sense only in comparison with other types of experiment - "natural" and psychological-pedagogical.

Classical forms of a laboratory experiment - a method of mental reactions that exists in many versions (simple, sensory and motor reactions, choice reactions, reactions to a moving object, etc.), psychophysical methods (determination of thresholds and sensitivity dynamics - absolute and differential - of various modalities ). These methods have received exceptional development not only in psychology, but also in many related sciences. In psychology itself, the progress of theory and experimental technique led to the further improvement of these methods.

Following these methods, experimental psychology began to be replenished with various psychometric methods for studying mnemonic, perceptual, apperceptive, and attentional processes. Each of them corresponds to special equipment and a specific technique for conducting experiments. Somewhat later, the possibilities of experimental study of the processes of thinking and speech functions opened up. Thanks to the successful development of this study, the experimental foundations of semiotics and modern heuristics have been created, for which the experimental psychology of thinking is no less important than mathematical logic.

In many functional and procedural experimental psychological studies, a variety of physiological (especially conditioned reflex and electrophysiological) and physicochemical methods are used, and in the study of speech and thought processes, linguistic and logical methods of research are used.

The complication of psychological measurement methods has led to the creation of a special field of experimental psychology - the engineering and economic foundations of experimental psychology - which is in charge of designing laboratory facilities, choosing insulating materials and devices, designing new technology (equipment), etc.

The ever-widening introduction of radio electronics and automation into experimental psychological technology has ensured the creation of software signaling and stimulation devices with any signal complexes and with any gradation of their intensity. Due to the spread of electrophysiological devices, recording equipment is becoming more and more diverse and complex. In a number of cases, counting operations are included in this equipment, the results of which are issued in the form of quantitative indicators of stimuli and reactions. The development of signaling and recording equipment is still not sufficiently interconnected, and therefore it is still not uncommon for a device to record only chronometric indicators of motor or speech reactions from a complex set of signals. In the future, we should expect greater mutual agreement and integration of both types of equipment.

One of the most urgent problems of modern experimental psychology, according to P. Fress (Fress, Piaget, 1966, pp. 93-95), is the transition from the study of the psyche in the laboratory to the study of it in real life. In recent decades, thanks to electronics, it has become possible for experimental psychological technology to go beyond the boundaries of the laboratory, into certain conditions of real life. This kind of experimental psychological method can be called a field experimental method, using more portable equipment and shorter cycles of experimental procedures.

At present, field experiments are widely practiced in the psychophysiology of labor, aviation and space psychology, and especially in the psychology of sports and military psychology. Very interesting prospects for the development of laboratory and field experiments are opened by a socio-psychological study of interpersonal relationships in small groups, group and collective experiments using various types of homeostats, TV sets with feedback, the “dummy group” technique, etc.

The natural and psychological-pedagogical experiment has been thoroughly developed in Soviet psychology and described in detail in psychological-pedagogical studies (by N. A. Menchinskaya, G. S. Kostyuk, A. A. Lyublinskaya, M. N. Shardakova, and others).

In modern conditions, conversation is an additional technique to experimental methods or, which is typical for genetic and pathological psychology, a variant of a natural experiment that reproduces a certain situation of communication and mutual information. In social psychology, conversation acts as an independent interview method with its own special technique for collecting information, the principles of grading answers and a rating scale. On the basis of interviews, as well as questionnaires of various types and questionnaires, states (public opinion, public sentiment, social expectations, role behavior) are recognized and decisions are made. In other words, interviews, questionnaires and questionnaires (for example, Eysenck's questionnaires, on the basis of the analysis of which extraversion-introversion, a measure of neuroticism, etc. are determined) are psychodiagnostic tools and should be attributed to this group of empirical methods.

Psychodiagnostic methods also include sociometric methods, by means of which the status of an individual in groups (small and large), indicators of emotional expansion, etc. are determined. An extensive and ever-increasing number of methodological techniques are tests, or mass psychological tests. Criticism of this method in Soviet scientific literature was mainly directed at the tendency of the bourgeois interpretation of the data obtained with the help of one of the main types of tests claiming to determine intellectual abilities or mental endowments. The use of these tests for the purposes of social selection is reactionary and directed against the democratization of education and culture.

Attention was drawn to the excessive formalization of assessments and orientation to the results of solving problems, ignoring the originality of the process of intellectual activity. A serious drawback of many intelligence tests is their arbitrary nature: the design and introduction into mass practice of tests and subtests that have not passed the normal research cycle in special laboratories.

The most effective modifications of experimental methods, especially field ones, which are suitable for high-speed mass application, should be transferred to diagnostic methods. Some psychodiagnostic test systems (for example, D. Wexler's system and scale) meet these requirements, since most of the subtests are taken from experimental practice.

Among the tests, one should distinguish between standardized and non-standardized, and standardized tests have different purposes: success tests (knowledge assessment scale) of blank types, widely used in the learning process; intelligence tests, among which there are not only those that pursue the goal of directly determining mental giftedness, but also many tests aimed at determining the level and structure of intelligence (verbal and non-verbal, general); tests of professional suitability or professional ability to work, modified depending on professional profiles.

For the purpose of psychodiagnostics of personality traits, its character traits and motives of activity, projective tests are more often used (for example, “Rorschach spots”, etc.). The existing technique for processing data from projective tests is still very imperfect and does not exclude the possibility of subjectivist interpretations, especially in the psychoanalytic direction. However, the improvement of projective tests and the construction of objective systems for evaluating their results is quite possible and will contribute to the development of psychodiagnostics.

Psychomotor tests (for example, tests by N. Ozeretsky or the Brazilian psychologist Mir Lopez), psychovegetative tests (especially galvanic skin reactivity, sweating, blood pressure measurements during various physical and mental stresses) can be used as psychodiagnostic tools.

Thanks to the successes of the Soviet psychophysiological school, B. M. Teplov introduced into the system of psychodiagnostic means many valuable functional tests or tests of the neurodynamic properties of a person (the strength of the excitatory and inhibitory process, mobility, dynamism, etc.). For the same purposes, neurochronometry, developed by E. I. Boyko and his collaborators, is used. The creation of a unified system of modern psychodiagnostics is an urgent task of Soviet psychology, which should be solved by collective efforts in the coming years.

Among the praximetric methods, well-developed methods and techniques include timing of working or sports movements, cyclographic recording of acts of behavior or labor actions, professional description of an integral production complex, artistic, literary and scientific works, inventions and rationalization proposals, school essays and educational works). For each of these types of "products" of human activity, an appropriate analysis technique should be developed (measuring certain quantitative characteristics and assessing quality, including novelty and individualization of the results of theoretical and practical activities). In this regard, it may be useful to study preparatory handwritten and finished materials of literary, artistic, technical and scientific creativity.

The biographical method - the collection and analysis of data on the life path of a person as an individual and a subject of activity (analysis of human documentation, testimonies of contemporaries, products of the person's activity, etc.) - is still poorly developed in psychology. Even in such areas as personality psychology, characterology, and the psychology of art, there is still no developed methodology and technique for compiling collections of documents and materials, criteria for evaluating various components of a biography and determining types of a life path. However, a comparative study of biographies, such as biographies of scientists, compiled by G. Lehman (Geman, 1953) in order to determine the optimal periods of creativity and phases of the formation of talent, can be very useful for developing methods for biographical research.

A special group of "processing" research methods are quantitative (statistical) methods, which are described in detail in the next chapter. Qualitative analysis consists in the differentiation of the processed material by types, species, variants, in general, in the categorization of the quantitatively processed material, which is necessary for the preparation of a generalizing phase of research. One of the processing methods of qualitative analysis is psychological casuistry - a description of cases, both the most typical for a given population or its main levels, and those that are exceptions.

Interpretive methods of a synthetic nature in psychology are currently being formed depending on two main types of interconnections of mental phenomena - "vertical" genetic links between phases and levels of development and "horizontal" structural links between all the studied personality characteristics. (Age and individual differences..., 1967). The genetic method interprets all processed research material in the characteristics of development, highlighting the phases, stages, critical moments of the process of formation of mental functions, formations or personality traits. The structural method interprets all processed research material in the characteristics of systems and the types of connections between them that form a person, a social group, etc. A specific expression of this method is psychography.

In essence, at this methodological level, the method becomes, in a certain sense, a theory, determines the way for the formation of concepts and new hypotheses that determine further research cycles of psychological knowledge. That is why this chapter describes in such detail the complex and longitudinal methods that organize the structure and sequence of our research. From the same considerations, considerable attention is paid to our understanding of psychodiagnostic methods in the structure of empirical measurements, providing a certain direction in the study of the nature of mental phenomena.

. Observation method- this is the main method of modern psychology, the essence of which lies in the fact that scientific facts are collected through not interference in the life of an object, but passive contemplation of this fact

Observations can be carried out both short-term and long-term. Therefore, these types of observations are the method of cross section (short-term) and longitudinal (long-term)

The researcher can play the role of a passive observer (detached observation), or can actively interact with the object of study while simultaneously observing it (included observation)

Observation can be both selective and general, subject and object. For example, the general object - monitoring is carried out for all members of the team. Selective monitoring of the object - before observation, only individual members of the team were included. General on the subject - in the object of observation, all manifestations of the psyche (character, temperament, will) are investigated. Selective by subject - the entire array (in. Object) is investigated only one problem (thinking or memory).

The use of surveillance is governed by the following conditions:

1) purposefulness - determination of the purpose, objectives of the study;

2) natural conditions - typical conditions of observation (so that persons do not know that they are being observed);

3) availability of a plan;

4) precise definition of the object and subject of observation;

5) restriction by the researcher of the signs that are the subject of observation;

6) development by the researcher of unambiguous criteria for evaluating these features;

7) ensuring the clarity and duration of observation

. Figure 124. Advantages and disadvantages of the observation method

The method of observation is used not only by scientists, but also by students, for example, when accumulating data for writing the psychological characteristics of a person

. Experiment- the main method of psychology, which lies in the fact that facts are obtained by creating special conditions in which the object could most clearly show the subject being studied

There are experiments: laboratory and natural, ascertaining and molding

. Laboratory carried out in special psychological laboratories with the help of appropriate equipment

. natural experiment carried out under normal conditions of activity under study. A natural experiment, just like a laboratory one, is carried out according to a certain program, but in such a way that a person does not know that it is being investigated and solutions are knitted calmly, at her usual pace.

. Statement experiment aimed at fixing the existing psychological characteristics of a person, molding focused on stimulating the desired mental manifestations

. Figure 125. Advantages and disadvantages of the experiment

Features of auxiliary methods of psychology

. Conversation- a method of obtaining information based on verbal (verbal) communication, includes questions and answers

. The conversation can be diagnostic (discovers), corrective (forms)

The method of conversation can give valuable results under the following conditions:

1) a clear definition by the researcher of the purpose of the conversation;

2) clear planning of the system of questions;

3) the system of questions should correspond to the age and individual characteristics of the subjects, be dynamic, i.e. content of the following

the question should depend on the content of the answer to the previous etc.;

4) the conversation should be relaxed, friendly

. Questionnaire- a method of socio-psychological research using questionnaires, the content of questions and the method of answers in which are planned in advance

The reliability of the questionnaire data is tested in two ways:

1) repeated questioning by the same procedure of the same persons;

2) control of questionnaire data by other methods:

Interviews with third parties;

Observation;

Analysis of available documents

The questionnaire method can be used in absentia, a relatively economical method of collecting data. It allows you to analyze and process data using statistics. This method is used in mass surveys.

. Interview- a method that is used to collect primary information in psychological, sociological and pedagogical research

. Sociometry (from lat. societas - society metreo- measure) - developed. J. Moreno

This method is used to derive or formulate a working hypothesis in the early stages of the study; data collection, additions, clarifications, extensions, control of data obtained by other methods. Interview as a method three types:

1) a standardized interview, in which the wording and sequence of questions are determined in advance;

2) a non-standard interview, in which the person conducts it, is guided only by the general plan of the survey, formulates the question in accordance with the specific situation;

3) writing a standard interview containing a certain number of possible questions

. Test (from English test - test). Tests are small tasks in terms of volume and execution time, the same for all subjects.

The choice of interview types depends on the content of the study, the level of study of the problem, the preparation of the researcher.

. Testing- this is one of the auxiliary methods of psychology, the use of which can serve to identify:

1) the level of development of certain mental functions (observation, memory, thinking, imagination, attention, etc.);

2) the presence or absence of certain knowledge, skills, mental qualities, good breeding, etc.);

3) the degree of suitability or readiness of a growing individual or an adult for a particular profession;

4) mental illness;

5) interests, opinions, abilities of a person

. Product Analysis- This is one of the auxiliary methods of psychology. It includes the analysis of drawings, certain images

. sociometric method studies the nature of relationships in the team through the selection procedure

Psychology also uses data processing methods - these are quantitative and qualitative methods. Quantitative methods include, for example, the determination of average values ​​and dispersion measures, correlation coefficients, obodov graphs, histograms, charts, tables, etc. The qualitative method involves the analysis and synthesis of the data obtained, their systematization and comparison with the results of other data.

There are many methods used in psychology. Which of them is rational to apply, scientists decide in each case, depending on the tasks and object of study. In this case, as a rule, not one method is used, but several, which complement and control each other.