A Feminist Companion to Research Methods in Psychology

Book excerpt: “If you are interested in lived experience and meaning making, or want to think more creatively about psychology, this text is utterly invaluable.” Paula Reavey, Professor of Psychology and Mental Health, London South Bank University, UK “This book provides a wonderful, gently provocative, critical companion to the standard psychological curriculum!” Professor Virginia Braun, School of Psychology, Waipapa Taumata Rau/The University of Auckland, NZ “This is essential reading for all undergraduate and applied psychology courses.” Professor Erica Burman, University of Manchester, UK, editor of Feminists and Psychological Practice and co-author of Challenging women: psychology’s exclusions, feminist possibilities The Feminist Companion series includes books which act as your friends and mentors in book form, supporting you in your studies, especially when things get tough. This companion offers a better-informed understanding of research methods, exploring key topics such as ethics, reproducibility, reliability and validity, and research design through a feminist lens. The ethics of research relationships are explored, alongside issues to do with prejudices and biases implicated in psychology’s treatment of women. Ultimately, this book aims to develop your critical and analytical skills by encouraging a questioning approach to understanding how psychological knowledge is produced, and by offering alternative, feminist-informed approaches to framing research questions, adopting data collection techniques, and analysing and interpreting data. Key features of this book include: • Five Reasons Why You Need a Feminist Companion – a helpful guide to what readers can expect to gain from this book • Activity boxes, suggesting ways you can put the theory you are learning into practice • See and Hear for Yourself boxes, signposting readers to where they can find real-world examples of the concepts covered • Summary sections that articulate the main points of each chapter and provide a useful revision aid • A glossary of key terms The book maps to the British Psychological Society (BPS) curriculum on research methods as well as the Quality Assessment Agency’s (QAA) Subject Benchmark Statement for Psychology. Hannah Frith is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Surrey, UK. She is the current editor the British Psychological Society journal Psychology of Women and Equalities Review. Rose Capdevila is Professor of Psychology at The Open University. She has been co-editor of the journal Feminism & Psychology and Chair of the Psychology of Women and Equalities section of the BPS.