The strongest research methods for psychological
studies are: qualitative findings versus quantitative; experimental rather than
descriptive or correlational; controlled - experiment, meta - analysis, and observation designs over archival, case
study, computational modeling, content analysis, field experiment, interview, neuroimaging, quasi experiment, self - report inventory, random sample survey, or twin
study; and prospective (where subjects are recruited prior to the proposed independent effects being administered) and longitudinal (where subjects are
studied at multiple time points) rather than
retrospective or cross-section
study.