NCERT Solutions for Class 11 Psychology (Introduction to Psychology) Chapter 2 Methods of enquiry in psychology

NCERT
SOLUTIONS
CLASS - 11th

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Class : 11th
Subject : Psychology
Chapter : 2
Chapter Name : Methods of enquiry in psychology

Q1 What are the goals of scientific enquiry?

Answer. There are diverse kinds of research works and/or studies that are undertaken by
psychologists. However, it is seen that usually they share some common goals of enquiry.
These are:

Description: As is obvious, it is very important to describe a particular phenomena and
distinguish the described phenomena from others of the kind. Description is a very important
step as any event or phenomena that is to be described, may have many aspects, which need
to have their own explanations and descriptions. For example, the idea of entertainment has
various meanings for everyone which may vary from reading books to going to the movies.

Prediction, literally meaning forecasting of events. This is mainly used to establish a relationship
between two variables.

Explanation: Knowing the cause or the reason behind a certain behaviour is important and this
need is fulfilled by ‘explaining’ the behaviour. It also tries to understand the conditions under
which a particular behaviour may occur.
Sometimes it’s important to have control. Control actually means creating changes in the
phenomenon or behaviour. It may be referred to making a behaviour occur, and sometimes
changing it, whether enhancing it or reducing it and its effectiveness.

Application: Research related to psychology are conducted at various levels, mainly to solve the
range of problems faced by file society. Psychology helps in solving problems, which may be at
the individual, organizational or community level.

Q2 Describe the various steps involved in conducting a scientific enquiry.

Answer. The various steps involved in conducting a scientific enquiry, begin with
conceptualising a problem. A theme, topic for study is selected and the questions or problems
which would be answered during the study are made. Problems or questions may be based on
the materials acquired from the past researchers and/or personal experiences. Through these
studies and observation, a relationship between different variables is indicated. Hence, for
collecting the data, developing a certain design for research of the entire study is very important.
Participants of the study are selected. Some studies may require the selection of some special

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kind of participants, for example a child specific study will have children as participants. There
are factors to be taken into account for this selection, for example, nature of study. There are
also various methods by which data can be collected, these are observation, experimental,
correlational method. Hence, keeping in mind the kind and nature of study is very important
while choosing which data collection method to be applied. The next step includes the decision
to be taken as to what tools are to be used, like interview schedule, questionnaire, survey,
among others. At last, a graphical representation of data can be made using, bar diagram, pie
chart, histogram, mean, median, mode and standard deviation, all this is done to analyse the
collected data of the study. The study actually includes an assumed hypothesis. Then
researcher then sees if the conclusions support this hypothesis or not.

Q3 Explain the nature of psychological data.

Answer. The following are you the types of psychological data:

1. Demographic information includes personal information of a particular individual. These
include the name, age, gender, education, marital status, residence, caste, religion, income,
etc.of a particular person.

2. Physical information includes information related to the ecological conditions, i.e, the physical
surroundings of a person. This can be information about economy, housing conditions, facilities
at the home, in the school, transportation, among others.

3. Physiological data is related to the biological data of a particular person. This may include
data like height, weight, heart rate, level of fatigue, EEG, sleep schedule etc of a person. This
can also relate to the biological functioning of an animal.

4. Psychological information, as the name suggests, pertains to the psychological functioning of
an individual.

Q4 How do experimental and control groups differ? Explain with the help of an example.
example.

Answer. Experimental group: In this kind of a group, there is an independent variable. This
variable is the one that is manipulated in order to see its effects on other variables, which may
or may not be related. Hence, subjects in this group may receive some special treatment in
regard to the independent variable.

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Control Group: This can be best described as a comparison group. There is no major
independent variable to be administered in this group. The whole purpose of creating such a
group is to see and compare the results when the independent variable is applied to the
experimental group.

Q5 A researcher is studying the relationship between speed of cycling and the presence of
people. Formulate a relevant hypothesis and identify the independent and dependent of people.

Answer. A variable can be simply defined as any stimulus and/or event which varies. A variable
is something that can be measured, e.g. height.
A hypothesis statement which is testable and it tends to express the relation between two or
more than two variables.
Independent variable is a variable which can be and is very readily manipulated during an
experiment or study is systematically manipulated or altered in an experiment.

Dependent variable is the one that is measured after the experiment is done.

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Q6 Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of experimental method as a method of enquiry.
enquiry.

Answer. The main aim of the experimental method is to discover the relationship between a
range of factors. This can be done by manipulating the situations under which the experiments
are performed. The manipulation is done under totally controlled circumstances.

Characteristics:
As in any other scientific study, the study of psychological experimentation involves
manipulating a range of variables and then studying the effects of such manipulation on other
various aspects. This manipulation is set in a totally controlled condition. Subjects or individuals
to the study are randomly assigned to experimental and control groups.

Advantages:
A cause-effect relationship is bound to be established between the variables, using the
experimental method. Also, this enables the verification of the obtained result.

Limitations:
The environmental setting of conducting experiments is not at all natural. Therefore , the results
obtained from a study conducted under this method cannot be generalised and may also lack
external validity.

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Book : Psychology Ncert Solutions | Chapter - 2 Psychology

Q7 Dr. Krishnan is going to observe and record children’s play behaviour at a nursery school
without attempting to influence or control the behaviour. Which method of research is involved?

Answer. The method that can come to the best use of Dr. Krishnan would be the non-participant
observation. To observe and record a child’s behaviour at play, without controlling or
manipulating any factors and doing so in a natural environment, this method comes in handy.
To do this, he can sit in a corner and attempt to observe the children’s behaviour without the
children being aware of it and hence it can be an observation in a natural setting. He can then
collect all of his observations in the form of data in a file and then draw out conclusions. These
conclusions can then be compared to the assumed hypothesis.

Merits:
A researcher in this method, observes the behaviour, body language of people in their own
naturalistic settings. This enables an observer to get a first hand information regarding the
subject.

Q8 Give two examples of situations where survey method can be used. What are the limitations
of this method?

Answer. Surveys are useful in a variety of situations. The most common example is of surveys
being used in the political regime, to know people’s satisfaction or dissatisfaction with any
particular policy which may have been started by the government. The most common use of
surveys comes in handy during the election periods to know who people vote for.
Surveys are widely used to test hypotheses relating to the relationship among variables, for
example, checking the effects of some external factors on human behaviour. Surveys are
especially conducting before launching a particular product in the market. However, the major
difficulty still remains as the respondents tend to create a favourable impression during the
survey, and might answer the questions dishonestly. It makes the respondents conscious about
their responses and the impression the responses would form on others. A phenomena known
as the surveyor’s bias also affects the results, for example, the person conducting the survey
may ask the questions in such a way as to elicit what s/he may think are the desired response
to a particular question. It may also be noted that the information collected through surveys
remains at the surface and does not penetrate into the depth of the given problem. They are
also expensive to conduct and require a lot of time on the participants’ and surveyors’ part.

Q9 Differentiate between interview and questionnaire.

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Book : Psychology Ncert Solutions | Chapter - 2 Psychology

Answer. An interview with people, can be described as a face to face interaction between two or
more people. Interviews can be of two types, structured and unstructured. Interview is a very
personal method of digging up information about anything. It is mostly used to get to know
people. Interviews are very flexible, questions can be added or altered as per convenience. How
the information is retrieved, it all depends on the interviewer as only they can dig deeper by
posing counter question and by noticing non-verbal clues. Therefore, a very highly skilled
person is required to pose as an interviewer.

Questionnaire, on the other hand, consists of a form that has a series of questions to be
answered by the respondents. They are always structured. However, unlike the interview
method where the interviewer attempts to know more about the respondents, other than what is
verbally being said, here it is not possible to know anything more than whatever is asked in the
questionnaire. Needless to say that they are not subjective.

Q10 Explain the characteristics of a standardised test.

Answer. There are many advantages for choosing a standardised test.
These tests are considered to be reliable and here reliability refers to the consistency of scores
that are obtained by the participants on the same test at different times. This means that after
conducting such tests, there is no variation in the scores obtained by the participants on
different occasions. Validity: This refers to the fact that the given test actually tests the things it
is made for. A test can only be used it is valid in this sense.

Norms: These can be best described as the normal average performance of the group and a
test only becomes standardised if norms are developed for it.

Q11 Describe the limitations of psychological enquiry.

Answer. Like other physical sciences, psychology doesn’t have a zero point, which makes it
even more difficult to have proper psychological measurements. The measurements are very
relative in nature, hence, they cannot be universally generalised or applied. It can be seen as
the case in various scenarios, for example, while developing questionnaires, the tools which are
developed in urban context can not be applied in rural areas. Another major problem is that the
psychologists are dependent on tools which have origins in the west, but they cannot be used
universally.

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Q12 What are the ethical guidelines that a psychologist needs to follow while conducting a
psychological enquiry?

Answer. Voluntary participation, as the name suggests, means that participants freely choose
whether they want to participate in the study or not. Use of coercion or any other form of
pressure which forces any person to participate in an experiment should not be used.
Participants should, at all times, have the right to withdraw from study.
In a study, the people who are participating should be informed, i.e, they should understand
what kind of treatment and experiments they might undergo during study. The participants
should be provided with all the information that they might ask for or all the information that the
conductor wants the participants to know. It should be provided to the participants before the
study/research starts.
In some cases, due to the nature of the study, it becomes impossible to give away all of the
information to the participants, this is known as deception. Hence, after the experiment is
completed, it becomes necessary to give complete information to the participants to enable
them to understand the whole purpose of the research.
The researchers are obligated to share the results of the study to the participants.
It is necessary to have a confidentiality of data sources. This is in accordance with every
participant having a right to privacy. This can be done only by protecting the information given
by the participants strictly confidential. In addition to this, the information provided by the
participants should be used for research purposes only and should not be misused. For the
purpose of confidentiality, sometimes, identities are not recorded. However, where it becomes
absolutely necessary to record and keep identities, codes are used.

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