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The 6 Scientific Method Steps and How to Use Them

General Education

When you’re faced with a scientific problem, solving it can seem like an impossible prospect. There are so many possible explanations for everything we see and experience—how can you possibly make sense of them all? Science has a simple answer: the scientific method.

The scientific method is a method of asking and answering questions about the world. These guiding principles give scientists a model to work through when trying to understand the world, but where did that model come from, and how does it work?

In this article, we’ll define the scientific method, discuss its long history, and cover each of the scientific method steps in detail.

What Is the Scientific Method?

At its most basic, the scientific method is a procedure for conducting scientific experiments. It’s a set model that scientists in a variety of fields can follow, going from initial observation to conclusion in a loose but concrete format.

The number of steps varies, but the process begins with an observation, progresses through an experiment, and concludes with analysis and sharing data. One of the most important pieces to the scientific method is skepticism —the goal is to find truth, not to confirm a particular thought. That requires reevaluation and repeated experimentation, as well as examining your thinking through rigorous study.

There are in fact multiple scientific methods, as the basic structure can be easily modified.  The one we typically learn about in school is the basic method, based in logic and problem solving, typically used in “hard” science fields like biology, chemistry, and physics. It may vary in other fields, such as psychology, but the basic premise of making observations, testing, and continuing to improve a theory from the results remain the same.

The History of the Scientific Method

The scientific method as we know it today is based on thousands of years of scientific study. Its development goes all the way back to ancient Mesopotamia, Greece, and India.

The Ancient World

In ancient Greece, Aristotle devised an inductive-deductive process , which weighs broad generalizations from data against conclusions reached by narrowing down possibilities from a general statement. However, he favored deductive reasoning, as it identifies causes, which he saw as more important.

Aristotle wrote a great deal about logic and many of his ideas about reasoning echo those found in the modern scientific method, such as ignoring circular evidence and limiting the number of middle terms between the beginning of an experiment and the end. Though his model isn’t the one that we use today, the reliance on logic and thorough testing are still key parts of science today.

The Middle Ages

The next big step toward the development of the modern scientific method came in the Middle Ages, particularly in the Islamic world. Ibn al-Haytham, a physicist from what we now know as Iraq, developed a method of testing, observing, and deducing for his research on vision. al-Haytham was critical of Aristotle’s lack of inductive reasoning, which played an important role in his own research.

Other scientists, including Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī, Ibn Sina, and Robert Grosseteste also developed models of scientific reasoning to test their own theories. Though they frequently disagreed with one another and Aristotle, those disagreements and refinements of their methods led to the scientific method we have today.

Following those major developments, particularly Grosseteste’s work, Roger Bacon developed his own cycle of observation (seeing that something occurs), hypothesis (making a guess about why that thing occurs), experimentation (testing that the thing occurs), and verification (an outside person ensuring that the result of the experiment is consistent).

After joining the Franciscan Order, Bacon was granted a special commission to write about science; typically, Friars were not allowed to write books or pamphlets. With this commission, Bacon outlined important tenets of the scientific method, including causes of error, methods of knowledge, and the differences between speculative and experimental science. He also used his own principles to investigate the causes of a rainbow, demonstrating the method’s effectiveness.

Scientific Revolution

Throughout the Renaissance, more great thinkers became involved in devising a thorough, rigorous method of scientific study. Francis Bacon brought inductive reasoning further into the method, whereas Descartes argued that the laws of the universe meant that deductive reasoning was sufficient. Galileo’s research was also inductive reasoning-heavy, as he believed that researchers could not account for every possible variable; therefore, repetition was necessary to eliminate faulty hypotheses and experiments.

All of this led to the birth of the Scientific Revolution , which took place during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In 1660, a group of philosophers and physicians joined together to work on scientific advancement. After approval from England’s crown , the group became known as the Royal Society, which helped create a thriving scientific community and an early academic journal to help introduce rigorous study and peer review.

Previous generations of scientists had touched on the importance of induction and deduction, but Sir Isaac Newton proposed that both were equally important. This contribution helped establish the importance of multiple kinds of reasoning, leading to more rigorous study.

As science began to splinter into separate areas of study, it became necessary to define different methods for different fields. Karl Popper was a leader in this area—he established that science could be subject to error, sometimes intentionally. This was particularly tricky for “soft” sciences like psychology and social sciences, which require different methods. Popper’s theories furthered the divide between sciences like psychology and “hard” sciences like chemistry or physics.

Paul Feyerabend argued that Popper’s methods were too restrictive for certain fields, and followed a less restrictive method hinged on “anything goes,” as great scientists had made discoveries without the Scientific Method. Feyerabend suggested that throughout history scientists had adapted their methods as necessary, and that sometimes it would be necessary to break the rules. This approach suited social and behavioral scientists particularly well, leading to a more diverse range of models for scientists in multiple fields to use.

The Scientific Method Steps

Though different fields may have variations on the model, the basic scientific method is as follows:

#1: Make Observations 

Notice something, such as the air temperature during the winter, what happens when ice cream melts, or how your plants behave when you forget to water them.

#2: Ask a Question

Turn your observation into a question. Why is the temperature lower during the winter? Why does my ice cream melt? Why does my toast always fall butter-side down?

This step can also include doing some research. You may be able to find answers to these questions already, but you can still test them!

#3: Make a Hypothesis

A hypothesis is an educated guess of the answer to your question. Why does your toast always fall butter-side down? Maybe it’s because the butter makes that side of the bread heavier.

A good hypothesis leads to a prediction that you can test, phrased as an if/then statement. In this case, we can pick something like, “If toast is buttered, then it will hit the ground butter-first.”

#4: Experiment

Your experiment is designed to test whether your predication about what will happen is true. A good experiment will test one variable at a time —for example, we’re trying to test whether butter weighs down one side of toast, making it more likely to hit the ground first.

The unbuttered toast is our control variable. If we determine the chance that a slice of unbuttered toast, marked with a dot, will hit the ground on a particular side, we can compare those results to our buttered toast to see if there’s a correlation between the presence of butter and which way the toast falls.

If we decided not to toast the bread, that would be introducing a new question—whether or not toasting the bread has any impact on how it falls. Since that’s not part of our test, we’ll stick with determining whether the presence of butter has any impact on which side hits the ground first.

#5: Analyze Data

After our experiment, we discover that both buttered toast and unbuttered toast have a 50/50 chance of hitting the ground on the buttered or marked side when dropped from a consistent height, straight down. It looks like our hypothesis was incorrect—it’s not the butter that makes the toast hit the ground in a particular way, so it must be something else.

Since we didn’t get the desired result, it’s back to the drawing board. Our hypothesis wasn’t correct, so we’ll need to start fresh. Now that you think about it, your toast seems to hit the ground butter-first when it slides off your plate, not when you drop it from a consistent height. That can be the basis for your new experiment.

#6: Communicate Your Results

Good science needs verification. Your experiment should be replicable by other people, so you can put together a report about how you ran your experiment to see if other peoples’ findings are consistent with yours.

This may be useful for class or a science fair. Professional scientists may publish their findings in scientific journals, where other scientists can read and attempt their own versions of the same experiments. Being part of a scientific community helps your experiments be stronger because other people can see if there are flaws in your approach—such as if you tested with different kinds of bread, or sometimes used peanut butter instead of butter—that can lead you closer to a good answer.

A Scientific Method Example: Falling Toast

We’ve run through a quick recap of the scientific method steps, but let’s look a little deeper by trying again to figure out why toast so often falls butter side down.

#1: Make Observations

At the end of our last experiment, where we learned that butter doesn’t actually make toast more likely to hit the ground on that side, we remembered that the times when our toast hits the ground butter side first are usually when it’s falling off a plate.

The easiest question we can ask is, “Why is that?”

We can actually search this online and find a pretty detailed answer as to why this is true. But we’re budding scientists—we want to see it in action and verify it for ourselves! After all, good science should be replicable, and we have all the tools we need to test out what’s really going on.

Why do we think that buttered toast hits the ground butter-first? We know it’s not because it’s heavier, so we can strike that out. Maybe it’s because of the shape of our plate?

That’s something we can test. We’ll phrase our hypothesis as, “If my toast slides off my plate, then it will fall butter-side down.”

Just seeing that toast falls off a plate butter-side down isn’t enough for us. We want to know why, so we’re going to take things a step further—we’ll set up a slow-motion camera to capture what happens as the toast slides off the plate.

We’ll run the test ten times, each time tilting the same plate until the toast slides off. We’ll make note of each time the butter side lands first and see what’s happening on the video so we can see what’s going on.

When we review the footage, we’ll likely notice that the bread starts to flip when it slides off the edge, changing how it falls in a way that didn’t happen when we dropped it ourselves.

That answers our question, but it’s not the complete picture —how do other plates affect how often toast hits the ground butter-first? What if the toast is already butter-side down when it falls? These are things we can test in further experiments with new hypotheses!

Now that we have results, we can share them with others who can verify our results. As mentioned above, being part of the scientific community can lead to better results. If your results were wildly different from the established thinking about buttered toast, that might be cause for reevaluation. If they’re the same, they might lead others to make new discoveries about buttered toast. At the very least, you have a cool experiment you can share with your friends!

Key Scientific Method Tips

Though science can be complex, the benefit of the scientific method is that it gives you an easy-to-follow means of thinking about why and how things happen. To use it effectively, keep these things in mind!

Don’t Worry About Proving Your Hypothesis

One of the important things to remember about the scientific method is that it’s not necessarily meant to prove your hypothesis right. It’s great if you do manage to guess the reason for something right the first time, but the ultimate goal of an experiment is to find the true reason for your observation to occur, not to prove your hypothesis right.

Good science sometimes means that you’re wrong. That’s not a bad thing—a well-designed experiment with an unanticipated result can be just as revealing, if not more, than an experiment that confirms your hypothesis.

Be Prepared to Try Again

If the data from your experiment doesn’t match your hypothesis, that’s not a bad thing. You’ve eliminated one possible explanation, which brings you one step closer to discovering the truth.

The scientific method isn’t something you’re meant to do exactly once to prove a point. It’s meant to be repeated and adapted to bring you closer to a solution. Even if you can demonstrate truth in your hypothesis, a good scientist will run an experiment again to be sure that the results are replicable. You can even tweak a successful hypothesis to test another factor, such as if we redid our buttered toast experiment to find out whether different kinds of plates affect whether or not the toast falls butter-first. The more we test our hypothesis, the stronger it becomes!

What’s Next?

Want to learn more about the scientific method? These important high school science classes will no doubt cover it in a variety of different contexts.

Test your ability to follow the scientific method using these at-home science experiments for kids !

Need some proof that science is fun? Try making slime

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What is the Scientific Method: How does it work and why is it important?

The scientific method is a systematic process involving steps like defining questions, forming hypotheses, conducting experiments, and analyzing data. It minimizes biases and enables replicable research, leading to groundbreaking discoveries like Einstein's theory of relativity, penicillin, and the structure of DNA. This ongoing approach promotes reason, evidence, and the pursuit of truth in science.

Updated on November 18, 2023

Beginning in elementary school, we are exposed to the scientific method and taught how to put it into practice. As a tool for learning, it prepares children to think logically and use reasoning when seeking answers to questions.

Rather than jumping to conclusions, the scientific method gives us a recipe for exploring the world through observation and trial and error. We use it regularly, sometimes knowingly in academics or research, and sometimes subconsciously in our daily lives.

In this article we will refresh our memories on the particulars of the scientific method, discussing where it comes from, which elements comprise it, and how it is put into practice. Then, we will consider the importance of the scientific method, who uses it and under what circumstances.

What is the scientific method?

The scientific method is a dynamic process that involves objectively investigating questions through observation and experimentation . Applicable to all scientific disciplines, this systematic approach to answering questions is more accurately described as a flexible set of principles than as a fixed series of steps.

The following representations of the scientific method illustrate how it can be both condensed into broad categories and also expanded to reveal more and more details of the process. These graphics capture the adaptability that makes this concept universally valuable as it is relevant and accessible not only across age groups and educational levels but also within various contexts.

Steps in the scientific method

While the scientific method is versatile in form and function, it encompasses a collection of principles that create a logical progression to the process of problem solving:

• Define a question : Constructing a clear and precise problem statement that identifies the main question or goal of the investigation is the first step. The wording must lend itself to experimentation by posing a question that is both testable and measurable.
• Gather information and resources : Researching the topic in question to find out what is already known and what types of related questions others are asking is the next step in this process. This background information is vital to gaining a full understanding of the subject and in determining the best design for experiments. 
• Form a hypothesis : Composing a concise statement that identifies specific variables and potential results, which can then be tested, is a crucial step that must be completed before any experimentation. An imperfection in the composition of a hypothesis can result in weaknesses to the entire design of an experiment.
• Perform the experiments : Testing the hypothesis by performing replicable experiments and collecting resultant data is another fundamental step of the scientific method. By controlling some elements of an experiment while purposely manipulating others, cause and effect relationships are established.
• Analyze the data : Interpreting the experimental process and results by recognizing trends in the data is a necessary step for comprehending its meaning and supporting the conclusions. Drawing inferences through this systematic process lends substantive evidence for either supporting or rejecting the hypothesis.
• Report the results : Sharing the outcomes of an experiment, through an essay, presentation, graphic, or journal article, is often regarded as a final step in this process. Detailing the project's design, methods, and results not only promotes transparency and replicability but also adds to the body of knowledge for future research.
• Retest the hypothesis : Repeating experiments to see if a hypothesis holds up in all cases is a step that is manifested through varying scenarios. Sometimes a researcher immediately checks their own work or replicates it at a future time, or another researcher will repeat the experiments to further test the hypothesis.

Where did the scientific method come from?

Oftentimes, ancient peoples attempted to answer questions about the unknown by:

• Making simple observations
• Discussing the possibilities with others deemed worthy of a debate
• Drawing conclusions based on dominant opinions and preexisting beliefs

For example, take Greek and Roman mythology. Myths were used to explain everything from the seasons and stars to the sun and death itself.

However, as societies began to grow through advancements in agriculture and language, ancient civilizations like Egypt and Babylonia shifted to a more rational analysis for understanding the natural world. They increasingly employed empirical methods of observation and experimentation that would one day evolve into the scientific method . 

In the 4th century, Aristotle, considered the Father of Science by many, suggested these elements , which closely resemble the contemporary scientific method, as part of his approach for conducting science:

• Study what others have written about the subject.
• Look for the general consensus about the subject.
• Perform a systematic study of everything even partially related to the topic.

By continuing to emphasize systematic observation and controlled experiments, scholars such as Al-Kindi and Ibn al-Haytham helped expand this concept throughout the Islamic Golden Age . 

In his 1620 treatise, Novum Organum , Sir Francis Bacon codified the scientific method, arguing not only that hypotheses must be tested through experiments but also that the results must be replicated to establish a truth. Coming at the height of the Scientific Revolution, this text made the scientific method accessible to European thinkers like Galileo and Isaac Newton who then put the method into practice.

As science modernized in the 19th century, the scientific method became more formalized, leading to significant breakthroughs in fields such as evolution and germ theory. Today, it continues to evolve, underpinning scientific progress in diverse areas like quantum mechanics, genetics, and artificial intelligence.

Why is the scientific method important?

The history of the scientific method illustrates how the concept developed out of a need to find objective answers to scientific questions by overcoming biases based on fear, religion, power, and cultural norms. This still holds true today.

By implementing this standardized approach to conducting experiments, the impacts of researchers’ personal opinions and preconceived notions are minimized. The organized manner of the scientific method prevents these and other mistakes while promoting the replicability and transparency necessary for solid scientific research.

The importance of the scientific method is best observed through its successes, for example: 

• “ Albert Einstein stands out among modern physicists as the scientist who not only formulated a theory of revolutionary significance but also had the genius to reflect in a conscious and technical way on the scientific method he was using.” Devising a hypothesis based on the prevailing understanding of Newtonian physics eventually led Einstein to devise the theory of general relativity .
• Howard Florey “Perhaps the most useful lesson which has come out of the work on penicillin has been the demonstration that success in this field depends on the development and coordinated use of technical methods.” After discovering a mold that prevented the growth of Staphylococcus bacteria, Dr. Alexander Flemimg designed experiments to identify and reproduce it in the lab, thus leading to the development of penicillin .
• James D. Watson “Every time you understand something, religion becomes less likely. Only with the discovery of the double helix and the ensuing genetic revolution have we had grounds for thinking that the powers held traditionally to be the exclusive property of the gods might one day be ours. . . .” By using wire models to conceive a structure for DNA, Watson and Crick crafted a hypothesis for testing combinations of amino acids, X-ray diffraction images, and the current research in atomic physics, resulting in the discovery of DNA’s double helix structure .

Final thoughts

As the cases exemplify, the scientific method is never truly completed, but rather started and restarted. It gave these researchers a structured process that was easily replicated, modified, and built upon. 

While the scientific method may “end” in one context, it never literally ends. When a hypothesis, design, methods, and experiments are revisited, the scientific method simply picks up where it left off. Each time a researcher builds upon previous knowledge, the scientific method is restored with the pieces of past efforts.

By guiding researchers towards objective results based on transparency and reproducibility, the scientific method acts as a defense against bias, superstition, and preconceived notions. As we embrace the scientific method's enduring principles, we ensure that our quest for knowledge remains firmly rooted in reason, evidence, and the pursuit of truth.

The AJE Team

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Steps of the Scientific Method 2

The scientific method is a system scientists and other people use to ask and answer questions about the natural world. In a nutshell, the scientific method works by making observations, asking a question or identifying a problem, and then designing and analyzing an experiment to test a prediction of what you expect will happen. It’s a powerful analytical tool because once you draw conclusions, you may be able to answer a question and make predictions about future events.

These are the steps of the scientific method:

• Make observations.

Sometimes this step is omitted in the list, but you always make observations before asking a question, whether you recognize it or not. You always have some background information about a topic. However, it’s a good idea to be systematic about your observations and to record them in a lab book or another way. Often, these initial observations can help you identify a question. Later on, this information may help you decide on another area of investigation of a topic.

• Ask a question, identify a problem, or state an objective.

There are various forms of this step. Sometimes you may want to state an objective and a problem and then phrase it in the form of a question. The reason it’s good to state a question is because it’s easiest to design an experiment to answer a question. A question helps you form a hypothesis, which focuses your study.

• Research the topic.

You should conduct background research on your topic to learn as much as you can about it. This can occur both before and after you state an objective and form a hypothesis. In fact, you may find yourself researching the topic throughout the entire process.

• Formulate a hypothesis.

A hypothesis is a formal prediction. There are two forms of a hypothesis that are particularly easy to test. One is to state the hypothesis as an “if, then” statement. An example of an if-then hypothesis is: “If plants are grown under red light, then they will be taller than plants grown under white light.” Another good type of hypothesis is what is called a “ null hypothesis ” or “no difference” hypothesis. An example of a null hypothesis is: “There is no difference in the rate of growth of plants grown under red light compared with plants grown under white light.”

• Design and perform an experiment to test the hypothesis.

Once you have a hypothesis, you need to find a way to test it. This involves an experiment . There are many ways to set up an experiment. A basic experiment contains variables, which are factors you can measure. The two main variables are the independent variable (the one you control or change) and the dependent variable (the one you measure to see if it is affected when you change the independent variable).

• Record and analyze the data you obtain from the experiment.

It’s a good idea to record notes alongside your data, stating anything unusual or unexpected. Once you have the data, draw a chart, table, or graph to present your results. Next, analyze the results to understand what it all means.

• Determine whether you accept or reject the hypothesis.

Do the results support the hypothesis or not? Keep in mind, it’s okay if the hypothesis is not supported, especially if you are testing a null hypothesis. Sometimes excluding an explanation answers your question! There is no “right” or “wrong” here. However, if you obtain an unexpected result, you might want to perform another experiment.

• Draw a conclusion and report the results of the experiment.

What good is knowing something if you keep it to yourself? You should report the outcome of the experiment, even if it’s just in a notebook. What did you learn from the experiment?

How Many Steps Are There?

You may be asked to list the 5 steps of the scientific method or the 6 steps of the method or some other number. There are different ways of grouping together the steps outlined here, so it’s a good idea to learn the way an instructor wants you to list the steps. No matter how many steps there are, the order is always the same.

Related Posts

2 thoughts on “ steps of the scientific method ”.

You raise a valid point, but peer review has its limitations. Consider the case of Galileo, for example.

That’s a good point too. But that was a rare limitation due to religion, and scientific consensus prevailed in the end. It’s nowhere near a reason to doubt scientific consensus in general. I’m thinking about issues such as climate change where so many people are skeptical despite 97% consensus among climate scientists. I was just surprised to see that this is not included as an important part of the process.

Comments are closed.

What Are The Steps Of The Scientific Method?

Julia Simkus

Editor at Simply Psychology

BA (Hons) Psychology, Princeton University

Julia Simkus is a graduate of Princeton University with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. She is currently studying for a Master's Degree in Counseling for Mental Health and Wellness in September 2023. Julia's research has been published in peer reviewed journals.

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Saul McLeod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul McLeod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc

Associate Editor for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education

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On This Page:

Science is not just knowledge. It is also a method for obtaining knowledge. Scientific understanding is organized into theories.

The scientific method is a step-by-step process used by researchers and scientists to determine if there is a relationship between two or more variables. Psychologists use this method to conduct psychological research, gather data, process information, and describe behaviors.

It involves careful observation, asking questions, formulating hypotheses, experimental testing, and refining hypotheses based on experimental findings.

How it is Used

The scientific method can be applied broadly in science across many different fields, such as chemistry, physics, geology, and psychology. In a typical application of this process, a researcher will develop a hypothesis, test this hypothesis, and then modify the hypothesis based on the outcomes of the experiment.

The process is then repeated with the modified hypothesis until the results align with the observed phenomena. Detailed steps of the scientific method are described below.

Keep in mind that the scientific method does not have to follow this fixed sequence of steps; rather, these steps represent a set of general principles or guidelines.

7 Steps of the Scientific Method

Psychology uses an empirical approach.

Empiricism (founded by John Locke) states that the only source of knowledge comes through our senses – e.g., sight, hearing, touch, etc.

Empirical evidence does not rely on argument or belief. Thus, empiricism is the view that all knowledge is based on or may come from direct observation and experience.

The empiricist approach of gaining knowledge through experience quickly became the scientific approach and greatly influenced the development of physics and chemistry in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Step 1: Make an Observation (Theory Construction)

Every researcher starts at the very beginning. Before diving in and exploring something, one must first determine what they will study – it seems simple enough!

By making observations, researchers can establish an area of interest. Once this topic of study has been chosen, a researcher should review existing literature to gain insight into what has already been tested and determine what questions remain unanswered.

This assessment will provide helpful information about what has already been comprehended about the specific topic and what questions remain, and if one can go and answer them.

Specifically, a literature review might implicate examining a substantial amount of documented material from academic journals to books dating back decades. The most appropriate information gathered by the researcher will be shown in the introduction section or abstract of the published study results.

The background material and knowledge will help the researcher with the first significant step in conducting a psychology study, which is formulating a research question.

This is the inductive phase of the scientific process. Observations yield information that is used to formulate theories as explanations. A theory is a well-developed set of ideas that propose an explanation for observed phenomena.

Inductive reasoning moves from specific premises to a general conclusion. It starts with observations of phenomena in the natural world and derives a general law.

Step 2: Ask a Question

Once a researcher has made observations and conducted background research, the next step is to ask a scientific question. A scientific question must be defined, testable, and measurable.

A useful approach to develop a scientific question is: “What is the effect of…?” or “How does X affect Y?”

To answer an experimental question, a researcher must identify two variables: the independent and dependent variables.

The independent variable is the variable manipulated (the cause), and the dependent variable is the variable being measured (the effect).

An example of a research question could be, “Is handwriting or typing more effective for retaining information?” Answering the research question and proposing a relationship between the two variables is discussed in the next step.

Step 3: Form a Hypothesis (Make Predictions)

A hypothesis is an educated guess about the relationship between two or more variables. A hypothesis is an attempt to answer your research question based on prior observation and background research. Theories tend to be too complex to be tested all at once; instead, researchers create hypotheses to test specific aspects of a theory.

For example, a researcher might ask about the connection between sleep and educational performance. Do students who get less sleep perform worse on tests at school?

It is crucial to think about different questions one might have about a particular topic to formulate a reasonable hypothesis. It would help if one also considered how one could investigate the causalities.

It is important that the hypothesis is both testable against reality and falsifiable. This means that it can be tested through an experiment and can be proven wrong.

The falsification principle, proposed by Karl Popper , is a way of demarcating science from non-science. It suggests that for a theory to be considered scientific, it must be able to be tested and conceivably proven false.

To test a hypothesis, we first assume that there is no difference between the populations from which the samples were taken. This is known as the null hypothesis and predicts that the independent variable will not influence the dependent variable.

Examples of “if…then…” Hypotheses:

• If one gets less than 6 hours of sleep, then one will do worse on tests than if one obtains more rest.
• If one drinks lots of water before going to bed, one will have to use the bathroom often at night.
• If one practices exercising and lighting weights, then one’s body will begin to build muscle.

The research hypothesis is often called the alternative hypothesis and predicts what change(s) will occur in the dependent variable when the independent variable is manipulated.

It states that the results are not due to chance and that they are significant in terms of supporting the theory being investigated.

Although one could state and write a scientific hypothesis in many ways, hypotheses are usually built like “if…then…” statements.

Step 4: Run an Experiment (Gather Data)

The next step in the scientific method is to test your hypothesis and collect data. A researcher will design an experiment to test the hypothesis and gather data that will either support or refute the hypothesis.

The exact research methods used to examine a hypothesis depend on what is being studied. A psychologist might utilize two primary forms of research, experimental research, and descriptive research.

The scientific method is objective in that researchers do not let preconceived ideas or biases influence the collection of data and is systematic in that experiments are conducted in a logical way.

Experimental Research

Experimental research is used to investigate cause-and-effect associations between two or more variables. This type of research systematically controls an independent variable and measures its effect on a specified dependent variable.

Experimental research involves manipulating an independent variable and measuring the effect(s) on the dependent variable. Repeating the experiment multiple times is important to confirm that your results are accurate and consistent.

One of the significant advantages of this method is that it permits researchers to determine if changes in one variable cause shifts in each other.

While experiments in psychology typically have many moving parts (and can be relatively complex), an easy investigation is rather fundamental. Still, it does allow researchers to specify cause-and-effect associations between variables.

Most simple experiments use a control group, which involves those who do not receive the treatment, and an experimental group, which involves those who do receive the treatment.

An example of experimental research would be when a pharmaceutical company wants to test a new drug. They give one group a placebo (control group) and the other the actual pill (experimental group).

Descriptive Research

Descriptive research is generally used when it is challenging or even impossible to control the variables in question. Examples of descriptive analysis include naturalistic observation, case studies , and correlation studies .

One example of descriptive research includes phone surveys that marketers often use. While they typically do not allow researchers to identify cause and effect, correlational studies are quite common in psychology research. They make it possible to spot associations between distinct variables and measure the solidity of those relationships.

Step 5: Analyze the Data and Draw Conclusions

Once a researcher has designed and done the investigation and collected sufficient data, it is time to inspect this gathered information and judge what has been found. Researchers can summarize the data, interpret the results, and draw conclusions based on this evidence using analyses and statistics.

Upon completion of the experiment, you can collect your measurements and analyze the data using statistics. Based on the outcomes, you will either reject or confirm your hypothesis.

Analyze the Data

So, how does a researcher determine what the results of their study mean? Statistical analysis can either support or refute a researcher’s hypothesis and can also be used to determine if the conclusions are statistically significant.

When outcomes are said to be “statistically significant,” it is improbable that these results are due to luck or chance. Based on these observations, investigators must then determine what the results mean.

An experiment will support a hypothesis in some circumstances, but sometimes it fails to be truthful in other cases.

What occurs if the developments of a psychology investigation do not endorse the researcher’s hypothesis? It does mean that the study was worthless. Simply because the findings fail to defend the researcher’s hypothesis does not mean that the examination is not helpful or instructive.

This kind of research plays a vital role in supporting scientists in developing unexplored questions and hypotheses to investigate in the future. After decisions have been made, the next step is to communicate the results with the rest of the scientific community.

This is an integral part of the process because it contributes to the general knowledge base and can assist other scientists in finding new research routes to explore.

If the hypothesis is not supported, a researcher should acknowledge the experiment’s results, formulate a new hypothesis, and develop a new experiment.

We must avoid any reference to results proving a theory as this implies 100% certainty, and there is always a chance that evidence may exist that could refute a theory.

Draw Conclusions and Interpret the Data

When the empirical observations disagree with the hypothesis, a number of possibilities must be considered. It might be that the theory is incorrect, in which case it needs altering, so it fully explains the data.

Alternatively, it might be that the hypothesis was poorly derived from the original theory, in which case the scientists were expecting the wrong thing to happen.

It might also be that the research was poorly conducted, or used an inappropriate method, or there were factors in play that the researchers did not consider. This will begin the process of the scientific method again.

If the hypothesis is supported, the researcher can find more evidence to support their hypothesis or look for counter-evidence to strengthen their hypothesis further.

In either scenario, the researcher should share their results with the greater scientific community.

Step 6: Share Your Results

One of the final stages of the research cycle involves the publication of the research. Once the report is written, the researcher(s) may submit the work for publication in an appropriate journal.

Usually, this is done by writing up a study description and publishing the article in a professional or academic journal. The studies and conclusions of psychological work can be seen in peer-reviewed journals such as  Developmental Psychology , Psychological Bulletin, the  Journal of Social Psychology, and numerous others.

Scientists should report their findings by writing up a description of their study and any subsequent findings. This enables other researchers to build upon the present research or replicate the results.

As outlined by the American Psychological Association (APA), there is a typical structure of a journal article that follows a specified format. In these articles, researchers:

• Supply a brief narrative and background on previous research
• Give their hypothesis
• Specify who participated in the study and how they were chosen
• Provide operational definitions for each variable
• Explain the measures and methods used to collect data
• Describe how the data collected was interpreted
• Discuss what the outcomes mean

A detailed record of psychological studies and all scientific studies is vital to clearly explain the steps and procedures used throughout the study. So that other researchers can try this experiment too and replicate the results.

The editorial process utilized by academic and professional journals guarantees that each submitted article undergoes a thorough peer review to help assure that the study is scientifically sound. Once published, the investigation becomes another piece of the current puzzle of our knowledge “base” on that subject.

This last step is important because all results, whether they supported or did not support the hypothesis, can contribute to the scientific community. Publication of empirical observations leads to more ideas that are tested against the real world, and so on. In this sense, the scientific process is circular.

The editorial process utilized by academic and professional journals guarantees that each submitted article undergoes a thorough peer review to help assure that the study is scientifically sound.

Once published, the investigation becomes another piece of the current puzzle of our knowledge “base” on that subject.

By replicating studies, psychologists can reduce errors, validate theories, and gain a stronger understanding of a particular topic.

Step 7: Repeat the Scientific Method (Iteration)

Now, if one’s hypothesis turns out to be accurate, find more evidence or find counter-evidence. If one’s hypothesis is false, create a new hypothesis or try again.

One may wish to revise their first hypothesis to make a more niche experiment to design or a different specific question to test.

The amazingness of the scientific method is that it is a comprehensive and straightforward process that scientists, and everyone, can utilize over and over again.

So, draw conclusions and repeat because the scientific method is never-ending, and no result is ever considered perfect.

The scientific method is a process of:

• Making an observation.
• Forming a hypothesis.
• Making a prediction.
• Experimenting to test the hypothesis.

The procedure of repeating the scientific method is crucial to science and all fields of human knowledge.

Further Information

• Karl Popper – Falsification
• Thomas – Kuhn Paradigm Shift
• Positivism in Sociology: Definition, Theory & Examples
• Is Psychology a Science?
• Psychology as a Science (PDF)

List the 6 steps of the scientific methods in order

• Make an observation (theory construction)
• Ask a question. A scientific question must be defined, testable, and measurable.
• Form a hypothesis (make predictions)
• Run an experiment to test the hypothesis (gather data)
• Analyze the data and draw conclusions
• Share your results so that other researchers can make new hypotheses

What is the first step of the scientific method?

The first step of the scientific method is making an observation. This involves noticing and describing a phenomenon or group of phenomena that one finds interesting and wishes to explain.

Observations can occur in a natural setting or within the confines of a laboratory. The key point is that the observation provides the initial question or problem that the rest of the scientific method seeks to answer or solve.

What is the scientific method?

The scientific method is a step-by-step process that investigators can follow to determine if there is a causal connection between two or more variables.

Psychologists and other scientists regularly suggest motivations for human behavior. On a more casual level, people judge other people’s intentions, incentives, and actions daily.

While our standard assessments of human behavior are subjective and anecdotal, researchers use the scientific method to study psychology objectively and systematically.

All utilize a scientific method to study distinct aspects of people’s thinking and behavior. This process allows scientists to analyze and understand various psychological phenomena, but it also provides investigators and others a way to disseminate and debate the results of their studies.

The outcomes of these studies are often noted in popular media, which leads numerous to think about how or why researchers came to the findings they did.

Why Use the Six Steps of the Scientific Method

The goal of scientists is to understand better the world that surrounds us. Scientific research is the most critical tool for navigating and learning about our complex world.

Without it, we would be compelled to rely solely on intuition, other people’s power, and luck. We can eliminate our preconceived concepts and superstitions through methodical scientific research and gain an objective sense of ourselves and our world.

All psychological studies aim to explain, predict, and even control or impact mental behaviors or processes. So, psychologists use and repeat the scientific method (and its six steps) to perform and record essential psychological research.

So, psychologists focus on understanding behavior and the cognitive (mental) and physiological (body) processes underlying behavior.

In the real world, people use to understand the behavior of others, such as intuition and personal experience. The hallmark of scientific research is evidence to support a claim.

Scientific knowledge is empirical, meaning it is grounded in objective, tangible evidence that can be observed repeatedly, regardless of who is watching.

The scientific method is crucial because it minimizes the impact of bias or prejudice on the experimenter. Regardless of how hard one tries, even the best-intentioned scientists can’t escape discrimination. can’t

It stems from personal opinions and cultural beliefs, meaning any mortal filters data based on one’s experience. Sadly, this “filtering” process can cause a scientist to favor one outcome over another.

For an everyday person trying to solve a minor issue at home or work, succumbing to these biases is not such a big deal; in fact, most times, it is important.

But in the scientific community, where results must be inspected and reproduced, bias or discrimination must be avoided.

When to Use the Six Steps of the Scientific Method ?

One can use the scientific method anytime, anywhere! From the smallest conundrum to solving global problems, it is a process that can be applied to any science and any investigation.

Even if you are not considered a “scientist,” you will be surprised to know that people of all disciplines use it for all kinds of dilemmas.

Try to catch yourself next time you come by a question and see how you subconsciously or consciously use the scientific method.

Six Steps of the Scientific Method

Learn What Makes Each Stage Important

ThoughtCo. / Hugo Lin 

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The scientific method is a systematic way of learning about the world around us and answering questions. The key difference between the scientific method and other ways of acquiring knowledge are forming a hypothesis and then testing it with an experiment.

The Six Steps

The number of steps can vary from one description to another (which mainly happens when data and analysis are separated into separate steps), however, this is a fairly standard list of the six scientific method steps that you are expected to know for any science class:

• Purpose/Question Ask a question.
• Research Conduct background research. Write down your sources so you can cite your references. In the modern era, a lot of your research may be conducted online. Scroll to the bottom of articles to check the references. Even if you can't access the full text of a published article, you can usually view the abstract to see the summary of other experiments. Interview experts on a topic. The more you know about a subject, the easier it will be to conduct your investigation.
• Hypothesis Propose a hypothesis . This is a sort of educated guess about what you expect. It is a statement used to predict the outcome of an experiment. Usually, a hypothesis is written in terms of cause and effect. Alternatively, it may describe the relationship between two phenomena. One type of hypothesis is the null hypothesis or the no-difference hypothesis. This is an easy type of hypothesis to test because it assumes changing a variable will have no effect on the outcome. In reality, you probably expect a change but rejecting a hypothesis may be more useful than accepting one.
• Experiment Design and perform an experiment to test your hypothesis. An experiment has an independent and dependent variable. You change or control the independent variable and record the effect it has on the dependent variable . It's important to change only one variable for an experiment rather than try to combine the effects of variables in an experiment. For example, if you want to test the effects of light intensity and fertilizer concentration on the growth rate of a plant, you're really looking at two separate experiments.
• Data/Analysis Record observations and analyze the meaning of the data. Often, you'll prepare a table or graph of the data. Don't throw out data points you think are bad or that don't support your predictions. Some of the most incredible discoveries in science were made because the data looked wrong! Once you have the data, you may need to perform a mathematical analysis to support or refute your hypothesis.
• Conclusion Conclude whether to accept or reject your hypothesis. There is no right or wrong outcome to an experiment, so either result is fine. Accepting a hypothesis does not necessarily mean it's correct! Sometimes repeating an experiment may give a different result. In other cases, a hypothesis may predict an outcome, yet you might draw an incorrect conclusion. Communicate your results. The results may be compiled into a lab report or formally submitted as a paper. Whether you accept or reject the hypothesis, you likely learned something about the subject and may wish to revise the original hypothesis or form a new one for a future experiment.

When Are There Seven Steps?

Sometimes the scientific method is taught with seven steps instead of six. In this model, the first step of the scientific method is to make observations. Really, even if you don't make observations formally, you think about prior experiences with a subject in order to ask a question or solve a problem.

Formal observations are a type of brainstorming that can help you find an idea and form a hypothesis. Observe your subject and record everything about it. Include colors, timing, sounds, temperatures, changes, behavior, and anything that strikes you as interesting or significant.

When you design an experiment, you are controlling and measuring variables. There are three types of variables:

• Controlled Variables:  You can have as many  controlled variables  as you like. These are parts of the experiment that you try to keep constant throughout an experiment so that they won't interfere with your test. Writing down controlled variables is a good idea because it helps make your experiment  reproducible , which is important in science! If you have trouble duplicating results from one experiment to another, there may be a controlled variable that you missed.
• Independent Variable:  This is the variable you control.
• Dependent Variable:  This is the variable you measure. It is called the dependent variable because it  depends  on the independent variable.
• Scientific Method Flow Chart
• Scientific Variable
• Null Hypothesis Examples
• What Is a Hypothesis? (Science)
• What Are the Elements of a Good Hypothesis?
• What Is a Testable Hypothesis?
• What Are Examples of a Hypothesis?
• Scientific Hypothesis Examples
• Scientific Method Vocabulary Terms
• Understanding Simple vs Controlled Experiments
• The Role of a Controlled Variable in an Experiment
• What Is the Difference Between a Control Variable and Control Group?
• What Is a Controlled Experiment?
• Random Error vs. Systematic Error
• What Is an Experimental Constant?
• DRY MIX Experiment Variables Acronym

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scientific method

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• University of Nevada, Reno - College of Agriculture, Biotechnology and Natural Resources Extension - The Scientific Method
• World History Encyclopedia - Scientific Method
• LiveScience - What Is Science?
• Verywell Mind - Scientific Method Steps in Psychology Research
• WebMD - What is the Scientific Method?
• Chemistry LibreTexts - The Scientific Method
• National Center for Biotechnology Information - PubMed Central - Redefining the scientific method: as the use of sophisticated scientific methods that extend our mind
• Khan Academy - The scientific method
• Simply Psychology - What are the steps in the Scientific Method?
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Scientific Method

scientific method , mathematical and experimental technique employed in the sciences . More specifically, it is the technique used in the construction and testing of a scientific hypothesis .

The process of observing, asking questions, and seeking answers through tests and experiments is not unique to any one field of science. In fact, the scientific method is applied broadly in science, across many different fields. Many empirical sciences, especially the social sciences , use mathematical tools borrowed from probability theory and statistics , together with outgrowths of these, such as decision theory , game theory , utility theory, and operations research . Philosophers of science have addressed general methodological problems, such as the nature of scientific explanation and the justification of induction .

The scientific method is critical to the development of scientific theories , which explain empirical (experiential) laws in a scientifically rational manner. In a typical application of the scientific method, a researcher develops a hypothesis , tests it through various means, and then modifies the hypothesis on the basis of the outcome of the tests and experiments. The modified hypothesis is then retested, further modified, and tested again, until it becomes consistent with observed phenomena and testing outcomes. In this way, hypotheses serve as tools by which scientists gather data. From that data and the many different scientific investigations undertaken to explore hypotheses, scientists are able to develop broad general explanations, or scientific theories.

See also Mill’s methods ; hypothetico-deductive method .

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Scientific Method

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The scientific method is the process by which scientists of all fields attempt to explain the phenomena in the world. It is how science is conducted--through experimentation. Generally, the scientific method refers to a set of steps whereby a scientist can form a conjecture (the hypothesis) for why something functions the way it does and then test their hypothesis. It is an empirical process; it uses real world data to prove the hypothesis. There is no exact set of \(x\) number of steps to conduct scientific experiments, or even some exact \(y\) number of experiments, but the general process involves making an observation, forming an hypothesis, forming a prediction from that hypothesis, and then experimental testing. The scientific method isn't limited to the physical or biological sciences, but also the social sciences, mathematics, computing and other fields where experimentation can be used to prove beliefs.

We could observe that whenever a fire is smothered, it goes out. For instance a small fire that is covered with a blanket is extinguished. We could hypothesize that the reason for this is that fire requires some gas in our air to form and remain a flame. We could then use a vacuum chamber to test this theory. We would predict that outside of a vacuum, a fire could be lit but inside of a vacuum, with no air, that the fire would not ignite. If we were to test this theory, perhaps in multiple vacuums with multiple forms of tinder/fuel (wood, paper, petrol, etc.) and multiple means of ignition, we would notice that the fire never ignites. If we wished, we could further refine our hypothesis, suggesting that fire can only ignite if there is sufficient oxygen in the air. This we'd also test in the vacuum chamber, by pulling out all the air, then adding in different gases. We would notice that the fire would only ignite in the presence of oxygen or an oxidizing agent . It is possible that other, incorrect hypothesis could have been initially formed--such as smothering decreases the surface area the fire has, and could try making different sized fires--and been proven incorrect. Also, it is important to note that this single set of experiments is not enough to turn this hypothesis into a theorem. More experimentation and discovery would be necessary.

The scientific method also refers to the fact that science is ongoing . In some cases scientists continue to collect data to prove and disprove old theories. Or in other cases, scientists have hypothesis for why the universe behaves the way it does but are unable to gather sufficient data to prove their hypothesis. For instance, until recent discoveries at LIGO scientists could not confirm what happened when two black holes collided, although they believed (and it was confirmed in February 2016) that colliding black holes produced gravitational waves .

Steps of the Scientific Method

Falsifiability and why "theory" doesn't mean "untrue", avoiding bias, history and philosophy of science.

The scientific method is often presented as a set of steps, but not always with the same number or type of steps. However, philosophers of science generally agree that any presentation of the scientific method should have the following four steps:

• Observe - Sometimes referred to as characterizing, defining, or measuring, experimenters first witness some aspect of the universe, for instance, an apple falling. These observations then form a question, such as "Why do objects fall to the earth?"
• Hypothesize - Scientists then come up with a theory as to why this happens, for instance, the mass of the earth attracts the apple from the air to the ground.
• Predict - Using the hypothesis, a scientist calculates what measurable data points they believe will result in a given experiment, for instance an apple at a height of \(9.8\) meters should fall to the ground in \(\sqrt{2}\) seconds, or should be at a velocity of \(9.8\sqrt{2}\) m/s the moment before it hits the ground.
• Experiment - A test is run to determine if the prediction was correct.

With the notion that repeating these steps is also important. If a prediction is proven to be incorrect then alternative predictions and tests are conducted. Maybe even a new hypothesis could be formulated. Even if the hypothesis and prediction are correct, additional predictions and tests need to be run to best support any theory.

While this process can be explained or categorized differently than this, all formulations of the scientific method have empirical observations, a testable hypothesis, and testing data to prove or disprove that hypothesis. Crucial to this, is that an experimenter searches for experiments that produce the most unlikely results and experiments that are least likely to be coincidental . Hypotheses that produce highly unlikely predictions, in situations where little else could explain the result, are more likely to be true. Bayes' theorem can be used to show which predictions are more or less unlikely given some evidence, i.e. which proven predictions are "stronger" than others. For instance, the theory of evolution has been supported by the consistency of DNA across species whose phenomenology are significantly different. Despite the diversity of plant and animal species on Earth, the majority of our DNA is the same, and only 20 amino acids are the building blocks for every known living organism. It would be highly unlikely that vastly different forms of life have the same building blocks after millions, if not billions, of years of external manipulation, if not for some common origin.

The word "theory" can lead to confusion about how true some scientific principle is. Under the scientific method scientists use the word "theory" even for key principles (like gravity) that have been rigorously proven by modern science. This is because the scientific community believes it is important that hypothesis be falsifiable . Falsifiability refers to the fact that theories have been tested in experiments where they could have failed but did not. So when scientists refer to a principle as a theory, for instance Einstein's theory of relativity , they're actually referring to a hypothesis that has undergone the scientific method, i.e. that has been tested and proven true.

For instance, scientists sometimes refer to evolution as the "theory of evolution," which has contributed to the erroneous belief that the modern scientific theory of evolution is false. Really what the "theory of evolution" refers to is the ample research, testing, and empirical evidence that all consistently prove evolution to be true.

That isn't to say that theories can't be later disproven. Part of the advantage to the scientific method is that no theory is ever considered an unbreakable rule. Some theories seem correct given experiments that are run at the time they're created, but are proven wrong as new methods of experimentation are conducted. For instance, Einstein himself believed that the universe was static, not growing or contracting. That was later proven to be false and replaced with a theory that the universe was expanding (the Friedmann-LeMaitre model of an expanding universe , which Einstein himself accepted), but that its rate of expansion was slowing down. This was, in turn, also proven incorrect. The rate of the universe's expansion is speeding up. [1] Generally though, theories are modified over time, they are shown to be true under certain conditions, or partly true, and the strength of a theory may also be related to how long it has held up, without modification, to scrutiny.

Peer review: In modern science, experimenters present both their findings and their methodology for review by their peers, other talented scientists and experimenters. This is done before a work is published, but also publication itself is considered a way of inviting peer review. By sharing and disseminating work widely, the greatest number of others can review the work and offer criticism as needed.

Reproducibility: Related to peer review, is the notion that the results from experiments should be possible to reproduce. If one scientist conducts some experiment, others should be able to conduct the same experiment on their own and achieve the same results. Reproducible experiments strengthen theories.

Double-Blind Testing: Primarily used in medical , psychological , and behavioral economic testing, double-blind testing refers to having a test and control group, and running the experiment such that the person conducting the experiment does not know which is which. For instance, in testing the efficacy of a new drug, a pharmaceutical company may have a medical practitioner administer the new drug to one third of the test population, an existing known drug to another third, and a placebo, meaning something that isn't a drug but seems like it, to the remaining third of the test population, but without the nurse knowing which drug is which. The practitioner would then, still blind, track the progress of the entire testing population, gathering data about each test subject.

Double-blind studies are done to avoid biases that manipulate data, like controlling for the placebo effect where just giving a patient a drug that they perceive will be a cure can be causally linked to a decrease in symptoms. This positive causal effect occurs even with the drug that shouldn't affect the patient in anyway, when it is a sugar pill, or water, so long as the patient believes they are receiving a cure. Also double-blind studies help prevent observation bias, where the administrator of the drug may expect the population who received the new drug to outperform others, and so many inadvertently rate their progress better than other test groups.

A pharmaceutical company has a new drug they want to test to determine its efficacy. They have a hypothesis that this drug is super effective at curing a disease. Which of the following experiments/results best reflects the principles of the scientific method? Which is most scientific?

A) They gave 100 patients with the disease the drug and 100 patients a placebo from a population of 100,000 with the disease, they strictly controlled these patient's diet, limited other medication, and 77 of the subjects reported that their happiness improved significantly.

B) They found a remote island with an indigenous population that's genetically different from other populations and where 200 patients have the disease. They gave 100 patients on the island the drug and 100 a placebo. They strictly controlled these patient's diet, limited other medication, and found that 84 of the test patients had higher red and white blood cell count than the control group, and lower incidents of mortality from the disease than non-island populations.

C) They gave 100 patients with the disease the drug and 100 patients a placebo from a population of 100,000 with the disease, they strictly controlled these patient's diet, limited other medication, and found that only 5 of the test patients had higher red and white blood cell count than the control group, with no other changes in health.

D) They gave 100 patients with the disease the drug and 100 patients a placebo from a population of 100,000 with the disease, allowed both patients to consume and medicate in whatever way those patients desired, and found that 68 of the test patients had higher red and white blood cell count than the control group, with faster speed-to-recovery.

The theory of the scientific method has evolved over time, with modern historians pointing to Aristotle as an originator, and many looking to Thomas Kuhn's seminal work "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" as a key influence on current conceptions of the method.

Aristotle classified reasoning into three types:

• Abductive - Also known as guessing, abductive reasoning supposes that the most likely inference is correct. While this isn't rigorous, a well-informed individual is likely to make good guesses, and many significant theories of science have developed first from a guess.
• Deductive - Deductive reasoning uses premises to reach conclusions. One of the most famous examples being "All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal."
• Inductive - Inductive reasoning is the one preferred by scientists, and can be considered an early version of the scientific method. Namely, inductive reasoning uses empirical observations to make inferences, and accounts for probability in those inferences. A theory reached by induction is said to be more or less likely to be true, stronger or weaker.

The philosophy of science refers to the logic and thinking behind the scientific method. It questions what makes something scientifically valid. For instance, the scientific method assumes that reality is objective, and that explanations exist for all phenomena humans can observe.

Thomas Kuhn's book is foundational to the philosophy of science and the way sociologists and historians look at science through the ages. In it, he popularized the term "paradigm shift" and promoted a historical understanding of scientific discovery not as a linear accumulation of understanding, but as a set of scientific revolutions that "shift" humanity's understanding. Further, paradigm shifts open up whole fields (for instance quantum mechanics , behavioral economics or genetics ) with new approaches to understand the universe. Also what scientists consider true is not purely objective, but based on the consensus of the scientific community.

• Nobelprize.org, . The Nobel Prize in Physics 2011 Saul Perlmutter, Brian P. Schmidt, Adam G. Riess . Retrieved October 24th 2016, from http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2011/

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Scientific Method Steps in Psychology Research

Steps, Uses, and Key Terms

Verywell / Theresa Chiechi

How do researchers investigate psychological phenomena? They utilize a process known as the scientific method to study different aspects of how people think and behave.

When conducting research, the scientific method steps to follow are:

• Observe what you want to investigate
• Ask a research question and make predictions
• Test the hypothesis and collect data
• Examine the results and draw conclusions
• Report and share the results 

This process not only allows scientists to investigate and understand different psychological phenomena but also provides researchers and others a way to share and discuss the results of their studies.

Generally, there are five main steps in the scientific method, although some may break down this process into six or seven steps. An additional step in the process can also include developing new research questions based on your findings.

What Is the Scientific Method?

What is the scientific method and how is it used in psychology?

The scientific method consists of five steps. It is essentially a step-by-step process that researchers can follow to determine if there is some type of relationship between two or more variables.

By knowing the steps of the scientific method, you can better understand the process researchers go through to arrive at conclusions about human behavior.

Scientific Method Steps

While research studies can vary, these are the basic steps that psychologists and scientists use when investigating human behavior.

The following are the scientific method steps:

Step 1. Make an Observation

Before a researcher can begin, they must choose a topic to study. Once an area of interest has been chosen, the researchers must then conduct a thorough review of the existing literature on the subject. This review will provide valuable information about what has already been learned about the topic and what questions remain to be answered.

A literature review might involve looking at a considerable amount of written material from both books and academic journals dating back decades.

The relevant information collected by the researcher will be presented in the introduction section of the final published study results. This background material will also help the researcher with the first major step in conducting a psychology study: formulating a hypothesis.

Step 2. Ask a Question

Once a researcher has observed something and gained some background information on the topic, the next step is to ask a question. The researcher will form a hypothesis, which is an educated guess about the relationship between two or more variables

For example, a researcher might ask a question about the relationship between sleep and academic performance: Do students who get more sleep perform better on tests at school?

In order to formulate a good hypothesis, it is important to think about different questions you might have about a particular topic.

You should also consider how you could investigate the causes. Falsifiability is an important part of any valid hypothesis. In other words, if a hypothesis was false, there needs to be a way for scientists to demonstrate that it is false.

Step 3. Test Your Hypothesis and Collect Data

Once you have a solid hypothesis, the next step of the scientific method is to put this hunch to the test by collecting data. The exact methods used to investigate a hypothesis depend on exactly what is being studied. There are two basic forms of research that a psychologist might utilize: descriptive research or experimental research.

Descriptive research is typically used when it would be difficult or even impossible to manipulate the variables in question. Examples of descriptive research include case studies, naturalistic observation , and correlation studies. Phone surveys that are often used by marketers are one example of descriptive research.

Correlational studies are quite common in psychology research. While they do not allow researchers to determine cause-and-effect, they do make it possible to spot relationships between different variables and to measure the strength of those relationships. 

Experimental research is used to explore cause-and-effect relationships between two or more variables. This type of research involves systematically manipulating an independent variable and then measuring the effect that it has on a defined dependent variable .

One of the major advantages of this method is that it allows researchers to actually determine if changes in one variable actually cause changes in another.

While psychology experiments are often quite complex, a simple experiment is fairly basic but does allow researchers to determine cause-and-effect relationships between variables. Most simple experiments use a control group (those who do not receive the treatment) and an experimental group (those who do receive the treatment).

Step 4. Examine the Results and Draw Conclusions

Once a researcher has designed the study and collected the data, it is time to examine this information and draw conclusions about what has been found.  Using statistics , researchers can summarize the data, analyze the results, and draw conclusions based on this evidence.

So how does a researcher decide what the results of a study mean? Not only can statistical analysis support (or refute) the researcher’s hypothesis; it can also be used to determine if the findings are statistically significant.

When results are said to be statistically significant, it means that it is unlikely that these results are due to chance.

Based on these observations, researchers must then determine what the results mean. In some cases, an experiment will support a hypothesis, but in other cases, it will fail to support the hypothesis.

So what happens if the results of a psychology experiment do not support the researcher's hypothesis? Does this mean that the study was worthless?

Just because the findings fail to support the hypothesis does not mean that the research is not useful or informative. In fact, such research plays an important role in helping scientists develop new questions and hypotheses to explore in the future.

After conclusions have been drawn, the next step is to share the results with the rest of the scientific community. This is an important part of the process because it contributes to the overall knowledge base and can help other scientists find new research avenues to explore.

Step 5. Report the Results

The final step in a psychology study is to report the findings. This is often done by writing up a description of the study and publishing the article in an academic or professional journal. The results of psychological studies can be seen in peer-reviewed journals such as  Psychological Bulletin , the  Journal of Social Psychology ,  Developmental Psychology , and many others.

The structure of a journal article follows a specified format that has been outlined by the  American Psychological Association (APA) . In these articles, researchers:

• Provide a brief history and background on previous research
• Present their hypothesis
• Identify who participated in the study and how they were selected
• Provide operational definitions for each variable
• Describe the measures and procedures that were used to collect data
• Explain how the information collected was analyzed
• Discuss what the results mean

Why is such a detailed record of a psychological study so important? By clearly explaining the steps and procedures used throughout the study, other researchers can then replicate the results. The editorial process employed by academic and professional journals ensures that each article that is submitted undergoes a thorough peer review, which helps ensure that the study is scientifically sound.

Once published, the study becomes another piece of the existing puzzle of our knowledge base on that topic.

Before you begin exploring the scientific method steps, here's a review of some key terms and definitions that you should be familiar with:

• Falsifiable : The variables can be measured so that if a hypothesis is false, it can be proven false
• Hypothesis : An educated guess about the possible relationship between two or more variables
• Variable : A factor or element that can change in observable and measurable ways
• Operational definition : A full description of exactly how variables are defined, how they will be manipulated, and how they will be measured

Uses for the Scientific Method

The  goals of psychological studies  are to describe, explain, predict and perhaps influence mental processes or behaviors. In order to do this, psychologists utilize the scientific method to conduct psychological research. The scientific method is a set of principles and procedures that are used by researchers to develop questions, collect data, and reach conclusions.

Goals of Scientific Research in Psychology

Researchers seek not only to describe behaviors and explain why these behaviors occur; they also strive to create research that can be used to predict and even change human behavior.

Psychologists and other social scientists regularly propose explanations for human behavior. On a more informal level, people make judgments about the intentions, motivations , and actions of others on a daily basis.

While the everyday judgments we make about human behavior are subjective and anecdotal, researchers use the scientific method to study psychology in an objective and systematic way. The results of these studies are often reported in popular media, which leads many to wonder just how or why researchers arrived at the conclusions they did.

Examples of the Scientific Method

Now that you're familiar with the scientific method steps, it's useful to see how each step could work with a real-life example.

Say, for instance, that researchers set out to discover what the relationship is between psychotherapy and anxiety .

• Step 1. Make an observation : The researchers choose to focus their study on adults ages 25 to 40 with generalized anxiety disorder.
• Step 2. Ask a question : The question they want to answer in their study is: Do weekly psychotherapy sessions reduce symptoms in adults ages 25 to 40 with generalized anxiety disorder?
• Step 3. Test your hypothesis : Researchers collect data on participants' anxiety symptoms . They work with therapists to create a consistent program that all participants undergo. Group 1 may attend therapy once per week, whereas group 2 does not attend therapy.
• Step 4. Examine the results : Participants record their symptoms and any changes over a period of three months. After this period, people in group 1 report significant improvements in their anxiety symptoms, whereas those in group 2 report no significant changes.
• Step 5. Report the results : Researchers write a report that includes their hypothesis, information on participants, variables, procedure, and conclusions drawn from the study. In this case, they say that "Weekly therapy sessions are shown to reduce anxiety symptoms in adults ages 25 to 40."

Of course, there are many details that go into planning and executing a study such as this. But this general outline gives you an idea of how an idea is formulated and tested, and how researchers arrive at results using the scientific method.

Erol A. How to conduct scientific research ? Noro Psikiyatr Ars . 2017;54(2):97-98. doi:10.5152/npa.2017.0120102

University of Minnesota. Psychologists use the scientific method to guide their research .

Shaughnessy, JJ, Zechmeister, EB, & Zechmeister, JS. Research Methods In Psychology . New York: McGraw Hill Education; 2015.

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

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What Is the Scientific Method?

The scientific method is a systematic way of conducting experiments or studies so that you can explore the things you observe in the world and answer questions about them. The scientific method, also known as the hypothetico-deductive method, is a series of steps that can help you accurately describe the things you observe or improve your understanding of them.

Ultimately, your goal when you use the scientific method is to:

• Find a cause-and-effect relationship by asking a question about something you observed
• Collect as much evidence as you can about what you observed, as this can help you explore the connection between your evidence and what you observed
• Determine if all your evidence can be combined to answer your question in a way that makes sense

Francis Bacon and René Descartes are usually credited with formalizing the process in the 16th and 17th centuries. The two philosophers argued that research shouldn’t be guided by preset metaphysical ideas of how reality works. They supported the use of inductive reasoning to come up with hypotheses and understand new things about reality.

Scientific Method Steps

The scientific method is a step-by-step problem-solving process. These steps include:

Observe the world around you. This will help you come up with a topic you are interested in and want to learn more about. In many cases, you already have a topic in mind because you have a related question for which you couldn't find an immediate answer.

Either way, you'll start the process by finding out what people before you already know about the topic, as well as any questions that people are still asking about. You may need to look up and read books and articles from academic journals or talk to other people so that you understand as much as you possibly can about your topic. This will help you with your next step.

Ask questions. Asking questions about what you observed and learned from reading and talking to others can help you figure out what the "problem" is. Scientists try to ask questions that are both interesting and specific and can be answered with the help of a fairly easy experiment or series of experiments. Your question should have one part (called a variable) that you can change in your experiment and another variable that you can measure. Your goal is to design an experiment that is a "fair test," which is when all the conditions in the experiment are kept the same except for the one you change (called the experimental or independent variable).

Form a hypothesis and make predictions based on it.  A hypothesis is an educated guess about the relationship between two or more variables in your question. A good hypothesis lets you predict what will happen when you test it in an experiment. Another important feature of a good hypothesis is that, if the hypothesis is wrong, you should be able to show that it's wrong. This is called falsifiability. If your experiment shows that your prediction is true, then your hypothesis is supported by your data.

Test your prediction by doing an experiment or making more observations.  The way you test your prediction depends on what you are studying. The best support comes from an experiment, but in some cases, it's too hard or impossible to change the variables in an experiment. Sometimes, you may need to do descriptive research where you gather more observations instead of doing an experiment. You will carefully gather notes and measurements during your experiments or studies, and you can share them with other people interested in the same question as you. Ideally, you will also repeat your experiment a couple more times because it's possible to get a result by chance, but it's less possible to get the same result more than once by chance.

Draw a conclusion. You will analyze what you already know about your topic from your literature research and the data gathered during your experiment. This will help you decide if the conclusion you draw from your data supports or contradicts your hypothesis. If your results contradict your hypothesis, you can use this observation to form a new hypothesis and make a new prediction. This is why scientific research is ongoing and scientific knowledge is changing all the time. It's very common for scientists to get results that don't support their hypotheses. In fact, you sometimes learn more about the world when your experiments don't support your hypotheses because it leads you to ask more questions. And this time around, you already know that one possible explanation is likely wrong.

Use your results to guide your next steps (iterate). For instance, if your hypothesis is supported, you may do more experiments to confirm it. Or you could come up with a hypothesis about why it works this way and design an experiment to test that. If your hypothesis is not supported, you can come up with another hypothesis and do experiments to test it. You'll rarely get the right hypothesis in one go. Most of the time, you'll have to go back to the hypothesis stage and try again. Every attempt offers you important information that helps you improve your next round of questions, hypotheses, and predictions.

Share your results. Scientific research isn't something you can do on your own; you must work with other people to do it.   You may be able to do an experiment or a series of experiments on your own, but you can't come up with all the ideas or do all the experiments by yourself .

Scientists and researchers usually share information by publishing it in a scientific journal or by presenting it to their colleagues during meetings and scientific conferences. These journals are read and the conferences are attended by other researchers who are interested in the same questions. If there's anything wrong with your hypothesis, prediction, experiment design, or conclusion, other researchers will likely find it and point it out to you.

It can be scary, but it's a critical part of doing scientific research. You must let your research be examined by other researchers who are as interested and knowledgeable about your question as you. This process helps other researchers by pointing out hypotheses that have been proved wrong and why they are wrong. It helps you by identifying flaws in your thinking or experiment design. And if you don't share what you've learned and let other people ask questions about it, it's not helpful to your or anyone else's understanding of what happens in the world.

Scientific Method Example

Here's an everyday example of how you can apply the scientific method to understand more about your world so you can solve your problems in a helpful way.

Let's say you put slices of bread in your toaster and press the button, but nothing happens. Your toaster isn't working, but you can't afford to buy a new one right now. You might be able to rescue it from the trash can if you can figure out what's wrong with it. So, let's figure out what's wrong with your toaster.

Observation. Your toaster isn't working to toast your bread.

Ask a question. In this case, you're asking, "Why isn't my toaster working?" You could even do a bit of preliminary research by looking in the owner's manual for your toaster. The manufacturer has likely tested your toaster model under many conditions, and they may have some ideas for where to start with your hypothesis.

Form a hypothesis and make predictions based on it. Your hypothesis should be a potential explanation or answer to the question that you can test to see if it's correct. One possible explanation that we could test is that the power outlet is broken. Our prediction is that if the outlet is broken, then plugging it into a different outlet should make the toaster work again.

Test your prediction by doing an experiment or making more observations. You plug the toaster into a different outlet and try to toast your bread.

If that works, then your hypothesis is supported by your experimental data. Results that support your hypothesis don't prove it right; they simply suggest that it's a likely explanation. This uncertainty arises because, in the real world, we can't rule out the possibility of mistakes, wrong assumptions, or weird coincidences affecting the results. If the toaster doesn’t work even after plugging it into a different outlet, then your hypothesis is not supported and it's likely the wrong explanation.

Use your results to guide your next steps (iteration). If your toaster worked, you may decide to do further tests to confirm it or revise it. For example, you could plug something else that you know is working into the first outlet to see if that stops working too. That would be further confirmation that your hypothesis is correct.

If your toaster failed to toast when plugged into the second outlet, you need a new hypothesis. For example, your next hypothesis might be that the toaster has a shorted wire. You could test this hypothesis directly if you have the right equipment and training, or you could take it to a repair shop where they could test that hypothesis for you.

Share your results. For this everyday example, you probably wouldn't want to write a paper, but you could share your problem-solving efforts with your housemates or anyone you hire to repair your outlet or help you test if the toaster has a short circuit.

What the Scientific Method Is Used For

The scientific method is useful whenever you need to reason logically about your questions and gather evidence to support your problem-solving efforts. So, you can use it in everyday life to answer many of your questions; however, when most people think of the scientific method, they likely think of using it to:

Describe how nature works . It can be hard to accurately describe how nature works because it's almost impossible to account for every variable that's involved in a natural process. Researchers may not even know about many of the variables that are involved. In some cases, all you can do is make assumptions. But you can use the scientific method to logically disprove wrong assumptions by identifying flaws in the reasoning.

Do scientific research in a laboratory to develop things such as new medicines.

Develop critical thinking skills.  Using the scientific method may help you develop critical thinking in your daily life because you learn to systematically ask questions and gather evidence to find answers. Without logical reasoning, you might be more likely to have a distorted perspective or bias. Bias is the inclination we all have to favor one perspective (usually our own) over another.

The scientific method doesn't perfectly solve the problem of bias, but it does make it harder for an entire field to be biased in the same direction. That's because it's unlikely that all the people working in a field have the same biases. It also helps make the biases of individuals more obvious because if you repeatedly misinterpret information in the same way in multiple experiments or over a period, the other people working on the same question will notice. If you don't correct your bias when others point it out to you, you'll lose your credibility. Other people might then stop believing what you have to say.

Why Is the Scientific Method Important?

When you use the scientific method, your goal is to do research in a fair, unbiased, and repeatable way. The scientific method helps meet these goals because:

It's a systematic approach to problem-solving. It can help you figure out where you're going wrong in your thinking and research if you're not getting helpful answers to your questions. Helpful answers solve problems and keep you moving forward. So, a systematic approach helps you improve your problem-solving abilities if you get stuck.

It can help you solve your problems.  The scientific method helps you isolate problems by focusing on what's important. In addition, it can help you make your solutions better every time you go through the process.

It helps you eliminate (or become aware of) your personal biases.  It can help you limit the influence of your own personal, preconceived notions . A big part of the process is considering what other people already know and think about your question. It also involves sharing what you've learned and letting other people ask about your methods and conclusions. At the end of the process, even if you still think your answer is best, you have considered what other people know and think about the question.

The scientific method is a systematic way of conducting experiments or studies so that you can explore the world around you and answer questions using reason and evidence. It's a step-by-step problem-solving process that involves: (1) observation, (2) asking questions, (3) forming hypotheses and making predictions, (4) testing your hypotheses through experiments or more observations, (5) using what you learned through experiment or observation to guide further investigation, and (6) sharing your results.

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What Are the Scientific Method Steps?

Explore with a well-organized and curious approach.

The scientific method not only teaches students how to conduct experiments, but it also enables them to think critically about processes that extend beyond science and into all aspects of their academic lives. Just like detectives, scientists, and explorers, students can use this scientific method structured-steps approach to explore, question, and discover. 

What is the scientific method?

What are the steps of the scientific method, how does the scientific method encourage critical thinking, how are the scientific method steps used in the classroom.

• Free printable scientific method steps worksheet
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The scientific method is like a structured adventure for exploring the world that encourages discovery by finding answers and solving puzzles. With the scientific method steps, students get to ask questions, observe, make educated guesses (called hypotheses), run experiments, collect and organize data, draw sensible conclusions, and share what they’ve learned. Students can explore the natural world with a well-organized and curious approach. 

The scientific method steps can vary by name, but the process as a whole is the same across grade levels. There are as many as seven steps, but sometimes they are combined. Below are six steps that make the process accessible to younger learners.

1. Question

Encourage students to ask why, what, when, where, or how about a particular phenomenon or topic. Get them wondering about something that they find interesting or have a passion for. 

2. Research

Teach them to use their senses to gather information and make notes—for example, what are they seeing, hearing, etc.

3. Hypothesize

Based on observations, students will then make a hypothesis, which is an educated guess—it’s what they think will happen in an experiment. 

4. Experiment

To test their hypothesis, students can conduct an investigation or experiment and collect data. Data collection can involve charts, graphs, and observations.

Students can then look at the results of their experiment and interpret what that means in the grand scheme of their original question. From the data collected, students can then apply the new knowledge to their original question. 

Just like real scientists, students can communicate their findings with their classmates in a presentation, lab write-up, and many other ways. 

Be sure to check out our free printable scientific method posters and free scientific method steps printable .

The scientific method fosters critical thinking in students by promoting curiosity, observation, hypothesis formation, problem-solving, data analysis, logical reasoning, and effective communication. This structured approach equips students with vital skills for science and everyday life, while also promoting open-mindedness, adaptability, and reflective thinking, enhancing their critical thinking abilities across various situations.

The scientific method isn’t just about experiments, it’s a valuable tool that helps students become critical thinkers in all areas of their studies. From forming hypotheses to conducting experiments and sharing findings, it equips them with important skills. Plus, it encourages open-mindedness and adaptability. By using the scientific method, students start a lifelong adventure of learning and solving problems.

Even students as young as kindergarten can begin learning and exploring the scientific method steps. Plus, the scientific method is used all the way through high school and beyond, so it’s not a one-and-done skill. If you’re looking for hands-on ways for students to practice the scientific method, we compiled science experiments, labs, and demonstrations for elementary through middle school teachers to share with their students:

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Free Printable Scientific Method Worksheet

This worksheet includes space for students to fill in every step of the scientific inquiry process along with prompts to ensure they stay on track. 

Free Printable Scientific Method Posters

Looking for a visual aid to help your students remember the steps to the scientific method? Get our free printable scientific method posters.

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Mechanics (Essentials) - Class 11th

Course: mechanics (essentials) - class 11th   >   unit 2.

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The scientific method

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Introduction

• Make an observation.
• Ask a question.
• Form a hypothesis , or testable explanation.
• Make a prediction based on the hypothesis.
• Test the prediction.
• Iterate: use the results to make new hypotheses or predictions.

Scientific method example: Failure to toast

1. make an observation., 2. ask a question., 3. propose a hypothesis., 4. make predictions., 5. test the predictions..

• If the toaster does toast, then the hypothesis is supported—likely correct.
• If the toaster doesn't toast, then the hypothesis is not supported—likely wrong.

Logical possibility

Practical possibility, building a body of evidence, 6. iterate..

• If the hypothesis was supported, we might do additional tests to confirm it, or revise it to be more specific. For instance, we might investigate why the outlet is broken.
• If the hypothesis was not supported, we would come up with a new hypothesis. For instance, the next hypothesis might be that there's a broken wire in the toaster.

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Chapter 6: Scientific Problem Solving

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Scientific Problem Solving Video

Science is a method to discover empirical truths and patterns. Roughly speaking, the scientific method consists of

1) Observing

2) Forming a hypothesis

3) Testing the hypothesis and

4) Interpreting the data to confirm or disconfirm the hypothesis.

The beauty of science is that any scientific claim can be tested if you have the proper knowledge and equipment.

You can also use the scientific method to solve everyday problems: 1) Observe and clearly define the problem, 2) Form a hypothesis, 3) Test it, and 4) Confirm the hypothesis... or disconfirm it and start over.

So, the next time you are cursing in traffic or emotionally reacting to a problem, take a few deep breaths and then use this rational and scientific approach. Slow down, observe, hypothesize, and test.

Explain how you would solve these problems using the four steps of the scientific process.

Example: The fire alarm is not working.

1) Observe/Define the problem: it does not beep when I push the button.

2) Hypothesis: it is caused by a dead battery.

3) Test: try a new battery.

4) Confirm/Disconfirm: the alarm now works. If it does not work, start over by testing another hypothesis like “it has a loose wire.”  

• My car will not start.
• My child is having problems reading.
• I owe $20,000, but only make $10 an hour.
• My boss is mean. I want him/her to stop using rude language towards me.
• My significant other is lazy. I want him/her to help out more.

6-8. Identify three problems where you can apply the scientific method.

*Answers will vary.

Application and Value

Science is more of a process than a body of knowledge. In our daily lives, we often emotionally react and jump to quick solutions when faced with problems, but following the four steps of the scientific process can help us slow down and discover more intelligent solutions.

In your study of philosophy, you will explore deeper questions about science. For example, are there any forms of knowledge that are nonscientific? Can science tell us what we ought to do? Can logical and mathematical truths be proven in a scientific way? Does introspection give knowledge even though I cannot scientifically observe your introspective thoughts? Is science truly objective?  These are challenging questions that should help you discover the scope of science without diminishing its awesome power.

But the first step in answering these questions is knowing what science is, and this chapter clarifies its essence. Again, Science is not so much a body of knowledge as it is a method of observing, hypothesizing, and testing. This method is what all the sciences have in common.

Perhaps too science should involve falsifiability, which is a concept explored in the next chapter.

Return to Logic Home                            Next (Chapter 7, Falsifiability)

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Multiple goals, multiple solutions, plenty of second-guessing and revising − here’s how science really works

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A man in a lab coat bends under a dim light, his strained eyes riveted onto a microscope. He’s powered only by caffeine and anticipation.

This solitary scientist will stay on task until he unveils the truth about the cause of the dangerous disease quickly spreading through his vulnerable city. Time is short, the stakes are high, and only he can save everyone. …

That kind of romanticized picture of science was standard for a long time. But it’s as far from actual scientific practice as a movie’s choreographed martial arts battle is from a real fistfight.

For most of the 20th century, philosophers of science like me maintained somewhat idealistic claims about what good science looks like. Over the past few decades, however, many of us have revised our views to better mirror actual scientific practice .

An update on what to expect from actual science is overdue. I often worry that when the public holds science to unrealistic standards, any scientific claim failing to live up to them arouses suspicion. While public trust is globally strong and has been for decades, it has been eroding. In November 2023, Americans’ trust in scientists was 14 points lower than it had been just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, with its flurry of confusing and sometimes contradictory science-related messages.

When people’s expectations are not met about how science works, they may blame scientists. But modifying our expectations might be more useful. Here are three updates I think can help people better understand how science actually works. Hopefully, a better understanding of actual scientific practice will also shore up people’s trust in the process.

The many faces of scientific research

First, science is a complex endeavor involving multiple goals and associated activities.

Some scientists search for the causes underlying some observable effect, such as a decimated pine forest or the Earth’s global surface temperature increase .

Others may investigate the what rather than the why of things. For example, ecologists build models to estimate gray wolf abundance in Montana . Spotting predators is incredibly challenging. Counting all of them is impractical. Abundance models are neither complete nor 100% accurate – they offer estimates deemed good enough to set harvesting quotas. Perfect scientific models are just not in the cards .

Beyond the what and the why, scientists may focus on the how. For instance, the lives of people living with chronic illnesses can be improved by research on strategies for managing disease – to mitigate symptoms and improve function, even if the true causes of their disorders largely elude current medicine.

It’s understandable that some patients may grow frustrated or distrustful of medical providers unable to give clear answers about what causes their ailment. But it’s important to grasp that lots of scientific research focuses on how to effectively intervene in the world to reach some specific goals.

Simplistic views represent science as solely focused on providing causal explanations for the various phenomena we observe in this world. The truth is that scientists tackle all kinds of problems, which are best solved using different strategies and approaches and only sometimes involve full-fledged explanations.

Complex problems call for complex solutions

The second aspect of scientific practice worth underscoring is that, because scientists tackle complex problems, they don’t typically offer one unique, complete and perfect answer. Instead they consider multiple, partial and possibly conflicting solutions.

Scientific modeling strategies illustrate this point well. Scientific models typically are partial, simplified and sometimes deliberately unrealistic representations of a system of interest. Models can be physical, conceptual or mathematical. The critical point is that they represent target systems in ways that are useful in particular contexts of inquiry. Interestingly, considering multiple possible models is often the best strategy to tackle complex problems.

Scientists consider multiple models of biodiversity , atomic nuclei or climate change . Returning to wolf abundance estimates, multiple models can also fit the bill. Such models rely on various types of data, including acoustic surveys of wolf howls, genetic methods that use fecal samples from wolves, wolf sightings and photographic evidence, aerial surveys, snow track surveys and more.

Weighing the pros and cons of various possible solutions to the problem of interest is part and parcel of the scientific process. Interestingly, in some cases, using multiple conflicting models allows for better predictions than trying to unify all the models into one.

The public may be surprised and possibly suspicious when scientists push forward multiple models that rely on conflicting assumptions and make different predictions. People often think “real science” should provide definite, complete and foolproof answers to their questions. But given various limitations and the world’s complexity, keeping multiple perspectives in play is most often the best way for scientists to reach their goals and solve the problems at hand.

Science as a collective, contrarian endeavor

Finally, science is a collective endeavor, where healthy disagreement is a feature, not a bug.

The romanticized version of science pictures scientists working in isolation and establishing absolute truths. Instead, science is a social and contrarian process in which the community’s scrutiny ensures we have the best available knowledge. “Best available” does not mean “definitive,” but the best we have until we find out how to improve it. Science almost always allows for disagreements among experts.

Controversies are core to how science works at its best and are as old as Western science itself. In the 1600s, Descartes and Leibniz fought over how to best characterize the laws of dynamics and the nature of motion.

The long history of atomism provides a valuable perspective on how science is an intricate and winding process rather than a fast-delivery system of results set in stone. As Jean Baptiste Perrin conducted his 1908 experiments that seemingly settled all discussion regarding the existence of atoms and molecules, the questions of the atom’s properties were about to become the topic of decades of controversies with the birth of quantum physics.

The nature and structure of fundamental particles and associated fields have been the subject of scientific research for more than a century. Lively academic discussions abound concerning the difficult interpretation of quantum mechanics , the challenging unification of quantum physics and relativity , and the existence of the Higgs boson , among others.

Distrusting researchers for having healthy scientific disagreements is largely misguided.

A very human practice

To be clear, science is dysfunctional in some respects and contexts. Current institutions have incentives for counterproductive practices, including maximizing publication numbers . Like any human endeavor, science includes people with bad intent, including some trying to discredit legitimate scientific research . Finally, science is sometimes inappropriately influenced by various values in problematic ways.

These are all important considerations when evaluating the trustworthiness of particular scientific claims and recommendations. However, it is unfair, sometimes dangerous, to mistrust science for doing what it does at its best. Science is a multifaceted endeavor focused on solving complex problems that typically just don’t have simple solutions. Communities of experts scrutinize those solutions in hopes of providing the best available approach to tackling the problems of interest.

Science is also a fallible and collective process. Ignoring the realities of that process and holding science up to unrealistic standards may result in the public calling science out and losing trust in its reliability for the wrong reasons.

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Tackle Your Math Homework with Our AI Math Solver

Struggling to do your math homework? HIX Tutor’s AI Math Solver simplifies math problems. Get fast, accurate math solutions in one click with our state-of-the-art math AI solver.

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Comprehensive support.

Math AI Solver can assist with math at all grade levels, ranging from elementary math to university and beyond.

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HIX Tutor’s AI Math Problem Solver Features at a Glance

1. What is Math AI?

A Math AI is an artificial intelligence-powered tool designed to solve complex mathematical problems efficiently and accurately. By utilizing advanced algorithms and computational power, Math AI can provide step-by-step solutions, offer insights into problem-solving strategies, and enhance our overall understanding of various mathematical concepts.

2. What math subjects does the AI math problem solver cover?

Our AI math solver tool is trained to solve a wide range of math subjects, including but not limited to, algebra, geometry, calculus, trigonometry, calculus, and more.

3. How long does this math AI take to get an answer to my math question?

HIX Tutor's math AI Solver is available 24/7 and delivers correct, step-by-step solutions to maths questions almost immediately after you submit the query.

4. What's the best Math AI solver?

HIX Tutor is the best Math AI that offers comprehensive solutions for solving complex mathematical problems. With its advanced features, such as step-by-step explanations, personalized learning paths, and interactive problem-solving tools, HIX Tutor aims to help students and professionals better understand mathematical concepts and improve their problem-solving skills.

5. How does HIX Tutor's AI for maths work?

HIX Tutor's math AI helper utilizes advanced algorithms and deep learning techniques to analyze and understand math problems. It breaks down the problem into steps, applies relevant mathematical concepts, and provides detailed explanations for each step of the solution.

6. Is HIX Tutor's mathematics AI solver accurate?

Yes, our math AI solving tool is designed to deliver accurate solutions. It has been trained on a vast dataset of mathematical problems to ensure its proficiency in providing reliable answers. However, it's important to note that while our tool strives for accuracy, occasional errors or misunderstandings may occur.

7. Is HIX Tutor's math AI solver replace the need for a maths tutor?

While our maths AI tool is designed to provide comprehensive support and step-by-step solutions, it is not intended to replace the guidance and expertise of a human maths tutor. It can be a valuable tool to supplement your learning and provide quick answers, but for in-depth understanding and tailored guidance, a maths tutor may still be beneficial in certain situations.

8. Is this math AI free to use?

Yes, you can try Math AI Solver at no cost. Once you’ve reached your free question limit, you’ll need to purchase an affordable subscription.

Discover Frequently Asked Math Questions and Their Answers

• How do you write the quadratic function #y=x^2+14x+11# in vertex form?
• How many points does #y=-2x^2+x-3# have in common with the vertex and where is the vertex in relation to the x axis?
• How do you solve #4x^4 - 16x^2 + 15 = 0#?
• How do you solve #2x^2+3x-2=0#?
• How do you solve #7(x-4)^2-2=54# using any method?
• How do you solve #x^2 + 5x + 6 = 0# algebraically?
• How do you use factoring to solve this equation #3x^2/4=27#?
• What is the vertex of # y = (1/8)(x – 5)^2 - 3#?
• How do you solve #| x^2+3x-2 | =2#?
• How do you solve #2x²+3x=5 # using the quadratic formula?
• How do you find the derivative of #y=tan(3x)# ?
• How do you differentiate #f(x)= 1/ (lnx)# using the quotient rule?
• How do you differentiate #(3+sin(x))/(3x+cos(x))#?
• What is the derivative of this function #sin^-1(x/4)#?
• What is the derivative of this function #y=sin^-1(2x)#?
• What is the derivative of this function #arcsec(x^3)#?
• What is the derivative of #y=sin(tan2x)#?
• How do you differentiate #cos(pi*x^2)#?
• What is the derivative of #f(x)=(x^2-4)ln(x^3/3-4x)#?
• What is the derivative of #y=3sin(x) - sin(3x)#?
• A triangle has corners at #(5 ,1 )#, #(2 ,9 )#, and #(4 ,3 )#. What is the area of the triangle's circumscribed circle?
• How can we find the area of irregular shapes?
• A triangle has vertices A, B, and C. Vertex A has an angle of #pi/2 #, vertex B has an angle of #( pi)/3 #, and the triangle's area is #24 #. What is the area of the triangle's incircle?
• An isosceles triangle has sides A, B, and C with sides B and C being equal in length. If side A goes from #(7 ,1 )# to #(8 ,5 )# and the triangle's area is #27 #, what are the possible coordinates of the triangle's third corner?
• A triangle has corners at #(7 , 9 )#, #(3 ,7 )#, and #(4 ,8 )#. What is the radius of the triangle's inscribed circle?
• Circle A has a center at #(2 ,3 )# and a radius of #1 #. Circle B has a center at #(0 ,-2 )# and a radius of #4 #. Do the circles overlap? If not, what is the smallest distance between them?
• A parallelogram has sides A, B, C, and D. Sides A and B have a length of #2 # and sides C and D have a length of # 7 #. If the angle between sides A and C is #pi/4 #, what is the area of the parallelogram?
• What is a quadrilateral that is not a parallelogram and not a trapezoid?
• Your teacher made 8 triangles he need help to identify what type triangles they are. Help him?: 1) #12, 16, 20# 2) #15, 17, 22# 3) #6, 16, 26# 4) #12, 12, 15# 5) #5,12,13# 6) #7,24,25# 7) #8,15,17# 8) #9,40,41#
• A triangle has corners A, B, and C located at #(3 ,5 )#, #(2 ,9 )#, and #(4 , 8 )#, respectively. What are the endpoints and length of the altitude going through corner C?
• What is the GCF of the set #64, 16n^2, 32n#?
• How do you write the reciprocal number of 5?
• Jeanie has a 3/4 yard piece of ribbon. She needs one 3/8 yard piece and one 1/2 yard piece. Can she cut the piece of ribbon into the two smaller pieces? Why?
• How do you find the GCF of #25k, 35j#?
• How do you write 132/100 in a mixed number?
• How do you evaluate the power #2^3#?
• How do you simplify #(4^6)^2 #?
• How do you convert 3.2 tons to pounds?
• How do you solve #\frac { 5} { 8} + \frac { 3} { 2} ( 4- \frac { 1} { 4} ) - \frac { 1} { 8}#?
• What are some acronyms for PEMDAS?
• How do you find all the asymptotes for function #y=(3x^2+2x-1)/(x^2-4 )#?
• How do you determine whether the graph of #y^2+3x=0# is symmetric with respect to the x axis, y axis or neither?
• How do you determine whether the graph of #y^2=(4x^2)/9-4# is symmetric with respect to the x axis, y axis, the line y=x or y=-x, or none of these?
• How do you find the end behavior of #-x^3+3x^2+x-3#?
• How do you find the asymptotes for #(2x^2 - x - 38) / (x^2 - 4)#?
• How do you find the asymptotes for #f(x) = (x^2) / (x^2 + 1)#?
• How do you find the vertical, horizontal and slant asymptotes of: #(3x-2) / (x+1)#?
• How do you find the Vertical, Horizontal, and Oblique Asymptote given #s(t)=(8t)/sin(t)#?
• How do you find vertical, horizontal and oblique asymptotes for #(x^3+1)/(x^2+3x)#?
• How do you find vertical, horizontal and oblique asymptotes for #y = (4x^3 + x^2 + x + 5 )/( x^2 + 3x)#?
• What is a pooled variance?
• What is the mean, mode median and range of 11, 12, 13, 12, 14, 11, 12?
• What is the z-score of sample X, if #n = 81, mu= 43, St. Dev. =90, and E[X] =57#?
• The camera club has five members, and the mathematics club has eight. There is only one member common to both clubs. In how many ways could a committee of four people be formed with at least one member from each club?
• How many permutations are there of the letter in the word baseball?
• How do you evaluate 6p4?
• What is the probability of #X= 6# successes, using the binomial formula?
• A lottery has a $100 000 first prize, a $25 000 second prize, and five $500 third prizes. A total of 50000 tickets are sold. What is the probability of winning a prize in this lottery?
• When a event is reported, the probability that is a negative event is 30%. What is the probability that 3 out of 5 reported events are negative?
• What is the median of 5, 19, 2, 28, 25?
• How do you solve this trigonometric equation?
• What is the frequency of #f(theta)= sin 3 t - cos2 t #?
• How do you evaluate #Sin(pi/2) + 6 cos(pi/3) #?
• How do you find the values of all six trigonometric functions of a right triangle ABC where C is the right angle, given a=9, b=40, c=41?
• How do you express (5*pi)/4 into degree?
• Solve for θ on the interval [90°,180°]:2tanθ +19 = 0?
• Prove that #((cos(33^@))^2-(cos(57^@))^2)/((sin(10.5^@))^2-(sin(34.5^@))^2)= -sqrt2# ?
• A triangle has sides A, B, and C. The angle between sides A and B is #(pi)/3# and the angle between sides B and C is #pi/6#. If side B has a length of 26, what is the area of the triangle?
• How do you write the following in trigonometric form and perform the operation given #(sqrt3+i)(1+i)#?
• A triangle has sides A, B, and C. The angle between sides A and B is #(2pi)/3#. If side C has a length of #32 # and the angle between sides B and C is #pi/12#, what is the length of side A?

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