Research Methods in Psychology 5th Edition by Beth Morling (2025)

Research Methods in Psychology, 5th Edition (2025) by Beth Morling is the leading undergraduate research methods textbook in psychology, fully revised and updated for the latest edition. Published by W. W. Norton & Company, this acclaimed text teaches students to think like behavioral scientists — interrogating claims, evaluating evidence, and designing rigorous studies that yield trustworthy conclusions.

Morling's signature framework guides students through the four big claims behavioral researchers make — frequency, association, causal, and generalization — and the validity questions that should be asked of each. Through engaging examples drawn from popular media, peer-reviewed journals, and real-world consumer claims, students develop the critical thinking habits required for both research consumption and research production.

Highlights of this edition's new content: entirely revised coverage of animal research in Chapter 4; expanded treatment of replication and open science; updated examples reflecting recent developments in psychological science; new pedagogical features that strengthen statistical literacy; and refreshed Working It Out exercises.

Topics covered: psychology as a way of thinking; sources of information about behavior; three claims, four validities; scientific writing and communication; ethical guidelines for psychology research and the IRB process; identifying good measurement (reliability and validity of scales); surveys and observations; sampling and frequency claims; bivariate correlational research and association claims; multivariate correlational research; introduction to simple experiments; more on experiments — confounding and obscuring variables; experiments with more than one independent variable; quasi-experiments and small-N designs; replication, generalization, and the real world; and reading and writing in psychology — APA-style research reports and literature reviews.

Essential for: undergraduate research methods courses in psychology; experimental psychology; psychological science methods sequences; pre-graduate students preparing for psychology PhD programs; honors thesis preparation; and any social or behavioral science student needing a rigorous, accessible introduction to research design and statistical reasoning.