Scientific and Non-Scientific Sources of Knowledge
The sources of scientific knowledge can be obtained using the references in the scientific publications, for instance, the scientific journals. Scientific knowledge can be verified and proven. On the other hand, non-scientific knowledge is obtained in four primary sources; common sense, authority, intuition, and tradition. Before this class, I understood new things through non-scientific sources of knowledge. The approach was not the right way to understand the world since it was based on personal judgment and opinions of other individuals (Yeatman, 2006).
Theories and Hypotheses
A theory refers to a unifying explanation and a well-substantiated set of proven and verified hypotheses. As opposed to theory, a hypothesis refers to a suggested explanation for a phenomenon that is observable or a prediction of a possible correlation among various incidents. However, both the hypothesis and theory can be testable and falsifiable. A theory can be made up of several hypotheses to explain how a broad set of observations are consistently formed. The hypothesis is based on specific observation, which is limited to that particular instance (Downs & Fawcett, 1986).
Searching Academic Literature
Searching the academic literature is essential when conducting research and ensures the information used is relevant and reliable. Identification of the topic is the initial step in doing academic search and clarification of the question to be answered. The next step is to identify where to search scholarly literature, and the keywords help in searching for the literature. However, it is essential to ensure the academic literature is relevant to the research question or topic of study. The liability of the literature is another crucial aspect where I will provide the literature that has empirical evidence (Beel et al., 2011).
Participant’s Safety and Privacy
Privacy is essential, especially when the human subjects are the participants of the research. Ethics in research methods uphold the confidentiality of the participants since the individuals participating have a right to privacy. The research organizer should ensure the privacy is maintained to ensure the confidential information does not fall in the third party without their consent. The researcher is also expected to provide the participants are safe from various forms of potential risks in research. For instance, psychological, legal, physical, and social/economic risks. Some of the physical dangers in the study comprise of pain and injury, which might occur as a result of research procedures (Frankfort-Nachmias, & Nachmias, 2007).
Ethical Issues in Zimbardo’s study
Zimbardo and his team were interested in knowing the brutality reported among the guards in the American prisons was as a result of prison environment or sadistic personalities. However, there are some ethical issues associated with the Stanford Prison Experiment. Lack of informed consent by the participants was the primary issue since even Zimbardo himself did not know what would result, and the experiment was unpredictable. The individuals who participated in the role of prisoners were not protected from experiencing distress, humiliation, and psychological harm (Haney, Banks, & Zimbardo, 1973).