Kimberley Louise Butler - C2225352
In the assignment, I will be trying to project an understanding of the cycle of enquiry. I plan to do this by drawing upon examples of psychological research. The cycle of enquiry is spilt up in to four elements. Those being the following…
1. Psychological research starts with the framing of appropriate, answerable questions.
2. The answers to these questions are claims. These claims have to be clearly identified so that they can be thoroughly assessed.
3. Assessing claims requires the amassing of information called data. The word ‘data’ is a plural word for the building blocks that make up the evidence that is presented in support of a claim.
4. The evidence then has to be interpreted and evaluated. The process of evaluation often generates new questions to be addressed as well as providing support for, or disconfirmation of, the original claims.
Social learning is a theory of learning based on observing and imitating the behaviours of others. Bandura et al (1963) touched upon this during his experiment exploring the extent to which children would imitate aggressive behaviour that they saw performed by another person, referred as a ‘model’.
The study was carried out at Stanford University using children between the ages of 35 to 69 months who attended the University nursery. The experiments were individual however the children were split in to four equal groups of 24. Equal number of both genders in all four groups. The variations in an experimental situation are called conditions. Four groups meant four conditions.