As beginning psychology students, we may wonder why we need to learn about research methods. Chapter 2 not only explains the importance of a good research method, but also the different types of 
designs a researcher may use. One important thing that makes research designs necessary is all the many biases and errors the human mind can make. Hindsight bias and overconfidence, two examples of cognitive biases that we can make, result in overestimating our abilities during research. Two research designs that the chapter touches on are correlation designs and experimental designs. A correlation research design examines the extent to which two variables are associated, and an experimental research design allows us to draw cause-and-effect conclusions. As the chapter continues, it also talks about ethical issues in research design (both in human and animal research), statistics, and evaluating psychological research. Here is a video that defines some of the key terms used in chapter 2:
Catchy title! Good overview of the chapter, but might have been more interesting to go in-depth about one of the topics you mentioned.