RESEARCH DESIGN AND STATISTICS

Objectives:

Psychology is a science! You have heard that in every psychology course that you have taken so far but you have probably not yet confronted exactly what that phrase means. The fundamental objective of this course is to challenge you with the scientific approach to psychology. As a preview, using a scientific approach is a way of thinking: more particularly, it is specific ways of collecting information (called data), ways of looking at and manipulating the information (statistics for the most part), and the way in which conclusions are reached using that information. These techniques for thinking are not just essential for trying to contribute to psychological knowledge (that is, to do research) but also for understanding what a particular piece of psychological knowledge means. Hopefully, as a result of the course you will think differently about what you have read in psychology so far and also approach your other courses with a more critical eye. To best accomplish these goals we will both cover the theory behind several psychological methods and try our hand at as many as possible. The theory will be covered in class and we will use the labs to perform very small scale psychological research and see how these methods work in some real situations.

Course Outline:

Use of Web Documents in this Course

In the course outline below, you will find references to several web pages (as hypertext links with the addresses of the pages). These are considered assigned supplementary material to be used in the course. Since they are supplementary, they may not all be covered explicitly in the class but it is assumed that you have visited the site and worked through the material or exercises. If a link goes out of date let me know and I will remove that page from the list of material to be used.

A. Psychology as a Science and What is Psychological Research

Jan 5-16	Chapters 1 and 2.
Week 1 and 2*	Chapter 6-7 (these are review and will not be covered in class)  Syllabus Due in Class Wednesday   Network 2 Due  Dr. Terry will visit 1/7 to discuss his research.
	LAB1: A Chip off Whose Block (Results Section) Report #1 (25 points)
	LAB 2: Library Research (75 points) Start out in SH 307.

B. Ethical Issues in Research

Jan 19-23  Week 3*	Chapters 4-5;  Beginning of research section of APA Ethicsl Guide   http://www.apa.org/ethics/code.html#6.06  Network 3 Due
	LAB 3: Serial Position Effect (Method and Results) Report #2 (50 points)

II. Non-Experimental Methods of Research (Descriptive)

A. Observational Research and Hypothesis Testing

Jan 26-30	Chapters 13-14
Week 4*	Central Limit Demonstration  http://www.stat.sc.edu/~west/javahtml/CLT.html  Project Proposal Due Friday
	LAB 4: Naturalistic Observation of Behavior (Method and Results) Report #3 (50 points)

B. Correlational Methods (Independent Groups t-test)

Feb 2-6	Chapter 10
Week 5*	Guessing Correlations at   http://www.stat.uiuc.edu/~stat100/java/GCApplet/GCAppletFrame.html
	LAB 5: Locus of Control of Different Groups (Introduction, Method, Results) Report #4 (75 points)

III. Experimental Methods

A. Two Independent Groups Designs

Feb 9-13	Chapter 15
Week 6
	LAB 6: Facial Perception I Report #5 (Full report, 75 points.)

B. Within Subjects Designs (Dependent t-test)

Feb 16-20	Chapter 16
Week 7*
	LAB 7: Midterm Examination

C. Complex Designs (ANOVA and Regression)

Mar 2-20	Chapters 17-19
Week 8*,9*,10*
	LAB 8: Facial Perception II Report #6 This is a poster presentation (75 points)
	LAB 9: Muller-Lyer Illusion Report #7 (75 points)
	LAB 10: Off or discussion

IV. Alternative Research Methods

A. Nonparametric Designs and Statistics

Mar 23-27	Chapter 21
Week 11*
	LAB 11: Effectiveness of Schedules of Reinforcement   This is part of class assignments

B. Quasi-Experimental and Single Subject Designs

Mar 30-Apr 3	Shaughnessy Chapter 11
Week 12*	LAB 12: OFF (We might have some class activities.)

V. Presentation of Final Lab Projects.

Apr 6-10
Week 13	LAB 13: Poster presentation of own projects.

Apr 13-17     During Final Exam Period     Final Exam

Assignments and Examinations:

• Class Discussion Questions and other Class Assignments:

Most units will be preceded by my handing out a series of questions that will be used to frame the discussion for that unit. You need to be prepared to discuss any question when called. In addition, there will be periodic assignments for the class. These activity combined will be worth 150 points total. Lack of preparation on a given assignment will result in a zero for that time, and that time only.
• Basic Terminology and Problem Assignment Quizzes:

One of the purposes of a major at Hanover College is to teach the student the basic vocabulary of the discipline. (Check http://psychlab1.hanover.edu/Research/terms.html for a partial list already defined for your.) This is echoed in the Psychology Department's own structuring of its major. It has been my experience that this class has not sufficiently helped students to be precise in the use of the language of research methodology and statistical usage. Therefore I am implementing short 10 minute vocabulary and problem drills to occur on 10 Fridays of the term (Marked above by a *). (15 points each for 150 points total.)
• Examinations:

There will be two examinations, a mid-term and a final. The format of the examinations will be problems to solve and essays. Both examinations will be three hours in length. The final examination will be cumulative. The midterm will be worth 150 and the final will be worth 200 points for a total of 350 points.
• Laboratory Assignments:
• Library Research.

Library research is fundamental. To give you some experience in library research, the first week will require you to find the answer to some library questions. (75 points).
• Reports.

As the class is about research methods, a laboratory component of the course is obvious. In these laboratories, we will usually collect a small amount of data and conduct a small piece of research to demonstrate what we are discussing in class. Then you will write up the research. Initially only sections will be required until full research reports will be required. The point value of each report is indicated in the course schedule above next to each lab report. The total point value for the lab reports is 425.
For help in preparing your reports check out (These are not part of the class readings):
• Preparing your Laboratory Report by Dr. Jan Kennedy at;

http://www.gasou.edu/psychweb/tipsheet/labrep.htm
• Library Research in Psychology by the APA at

http://www.apa.org/science/lib.html
• Your own Laboratory Project:

Each of you will be required to propose and conduct your own research. Because of the size of the class, you will work in teams of two, assuming that the class stays with an even number. Prior to deciding on a project, you must pick another member of the class to work with. Pick a technique and project and write a two page proposal by Friday, January 30 (50 points). I will approve or modify the proposal. You will then collect the data and analyze it. You will present the results in two ways, as a poster and as a read paper. The final lab session will be taken up with the poster session (all other faculty will be invited as well as other students). The final week will be the oral presentations. Each will be worth 75 points for a total of 150. Both members of the team will receive the same grade. I do not have any means of assessing the separate contributions of each member. If you have any ideas, I will be glad to listen.

Here are the research teams for the final project.

For some help on your project check out:

• Library Research in Psychology by the APA at

http://www.apa.org/science/lib.html
• If you need a psychological test check The Eric/AE test locator at:

gopher://vmsgopher.cua.edu./11gopher_root_eric_ae:[_tc]
• Network Use Assignments:

1. Get this syllabus and bring to class on Wednesday, Jan 7. (10 points)
2. Assignment 2: Create a file in a word processor of your choice. Save the document as a text file and include that file to me in another e-mail message (this is a second message). I will cover the specifics for this assignment in a laboratory class. Both assignment 1 and 2 must be completed one week before the first journal assignment is due as you will use these techniques to submit your papers. Due by the end of the second week. (20 points)
3. Assignment 3: I have had the Academic Computing center create a news discussion group for the class. This is to be a means for you to communicate ideas/successes/frustrations/questions to each other and to me. This third assignment is for you to post a message to the class on the group. The initial post is due on the newsgroup by the end of the third week. (The initial post is worth 20 points. Continued use of the group is worth 30 points.)

Class Participation:

Review Resources

• Logic Problems like those used in class: http://psych.hanover.edu/classes/logic.txt
• For Statistics Help:
• Statistics Glossary: http://www.cas.lancs.ac.uk/glossary_v1.1/main.html
• Statistical Calculator (does a few stats we use): http://www.stat.ucla.edu/calculators/
• The Problems with Statistics (a short paper on reasoning with statistics):

http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~taflinge/evistats.html

Grading:

Grades will be assigned as follows:

Grade	Points Needed
A	1500 - 1350
B	1349 - 1200
C	1199 - 1050
D	1049 - 900
F	< 900