PSY 220: RESEARCH METHODS &
STATISTICS
Instructor: Connie
Wolfe, Ph.D. Office
phone: 866-7318
Office: 155 Goodrich Home phone: 265-6594
(9am – 9pm only please)
E-mail: wolfec@hanover.edu
OFFICE HOURS: Check the sign up sheet on my door.
Please stop by during office hours, phone, or send me e-mail with any questions or concerns you have at any point. I also invite you to stop by just to chat about psychology or other topics. I look forward to getting to know each of you! J
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HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENTS: |
IN-CLASS ASSIGNMENTS: |
USEFUL HANDOUTS: |
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Course Schedule |
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Revised (4/1/02) Poster & Presentation Instruction Guide | |||
Web Links |
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Syllabus, continued...
Prerequisites: ID 147 and Psychology 111
Required Textbooks
Stangor,
C. (1998). Research Methods for the Behavioral Sciences. Boston:
Houghton-Mifflin
with Stangor, C. (1998). Using SPSS for Windows. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin.
Reserve & On-line Readings
There will
also be required readings on the web or that you will photocopy.
Course
Description and Overview: This is an
intensive course that provides you
with hands-on experience running studies, analyzing and interpreting data, and
with preparation of APA style research presentations. There are many assignments and it is important to keep up with
the class. REGULAR CLASS ATTENDANCE IS ESSENTIAL.
Why are we
here? The goal of this
course is to obtain firsthand knowledge about how information is acquired and
communicated in psychology. By the end
of the term you will have learned how to: design, run, analyze, and present
psychological research. Learning about research methods will also help you
think critically about research in psychology (and other fields). This class
tends to be an interesting mix of really fun projects, less-than-fascinating
textbook details of research methodology and (a mix of) assignments. Everything
is important to the “big picture” so you need to make a commitment now to keep
up with the readings, study hard, ask any questions you have, and be an active,
engaged student.
Coursework: The
course goals will be met using a combination of approaches. In your textbook, you will be reading about
issues involved with various research methods. You’ll be completing many
homework assignments and taking several quizzes and a final exam. To make
learning more salient, you will collect and analyze data using several
techniques you will learn about. In
particular, we (as a class) will be conducting a campus survey and you (as an
individual) will write up that study. Another major assignment for the course
will be a group research project. In your small group, you will design, run,
analyze and report on a study. At the end of the semester, your group will make
an oral presentation to the class about your results, and there will be a
poster session presenting everyone’s research to other psychology students and
faculty.
Grading: Your final grade will be determined by the
following:
15% Homework
30% Quizzes (6 @5% each)
5% Drafts of survey paper
15% Final Survey Paper (revised)
15% Grp. Project Poster
5% Grp. Project Presentation
15% Final cumulative exam
Grading Criteria:
Homework Assignments & Drafts
of campus survey paper: The homework assignments will be many and varied.
They will include in-class assignments, worksheets and some statistical
assignments. Both the homework assignments and the drafts for the campus survey
paper will be graded using: Ö+, Ö, Ö-. I will be looking to see that you
demonstrate a sufficient knowledge of the concepts involved, and that your writing
is clear and organized. Assignments
that are late or insufficiently complete will be given a grade of 0. A check plus will roughly translate into an
“A”, a check into a “B” and a check minus into a “C.” Typically, homework
should be typed, double-spaced, and proof-read. Missed in-class assignments
cannot be made up.
Quizzes/Exam: There will be six quizzes covering textbook
and in-class material. Each of these is worth 5% of your final grade. The final
exam is worth 15% of your final grade and will be cumulative. The tests may be a mixture of multiple choice,
fill-in, matching, and essay type questions – whatever suits the material. I
will give you more information before each quiz.
Final Survey Paper (revised): After getting feedback on the draft
write-ups of each section, you will
submit a final revised version of the write-up about the campus survey we
conduct. Grades will be based on the
following abilities:
To draw clear and justified
inferences linking previous theorizing to the hypotheses of the current study,
and show that you understand the hypotheses and where they come from.
To present and to explain
procedures and data clearly.
To go beyond the data and make
inferences about what the results mean in the big picture.
To use APA style appropriately.
To write clear and organized
papers that flow well from start to finish.
(Note: A grade of Ö+ on a draft does not mean
that the paper is already an A paper.
It merely means that you have met my expectations for your first attempt
– my standards for a final revision are much stricter.)
Group Project:
You all will be designing, conducting and reporting on a research
project that you do with one or two other classmates. I would like to help you
in any way I can, and I must be kept informed about the details of the project.
Otherwise, however, this project is yours to conduct independently. Your
results will be presented in an oral presentation and a poster.
Grades for the poster will be based on the above survey paper criteria as well
as your group’s design of a professionally attractive, engaging poster that is
easy and interesting to read. Your oral presentation (all members of the group
are required to speak) will be graded on the basis of its clarity and
completeness, as well as skill at answering questions. In most instances, your
entire group will receive the same grade for the poster. I do not know of
any fair way to grade each of you individually, please let me know if you have
ideas. Most of your group presentation grade will reflect the overall presentation,
but a portion will reflect your unique contribution.
Final Course Grades will be assigned as follows:
A 93-100%
A- 90-92%
B+ 87-89%
B 83-86%
B- 80-82%
C+ 77-79%
C 73-76%
C- 70-72%
D+ 67-69%
D 63-66%
D- 60-62%
F below 60%
Teaching
Philosophy
I try to treat students fairly
and provide as much information as I can regarding grading criteria,
expectations and deadlines. However, I
am also very strict regarding these issues.
Generally, I will do my best to meet you half-way if you are having
problems meeting deadlines or understanding the material. However, you must also meet me half-way, by
alerting me to potential problems early on and by sticking to any alternate
plans we make. Please feel free to come
see me anytime you feel you need extra help or guidance, I’d like this class to be a positive
experience for each of you!
Classroom Needs
If you have any
specific needs (e.g. related to vision, hearing, learning, or medical
conditions, etc.) or any religious or cultural practices that I can help
accommodate, please let me know by the second week of class or as the
situations arise so I can make the appropriate arrangements.
Academic
Dishonesty
Don’t cheat, don’t plagiarize. Plagiarism is more common than you might think. It may happen for (at least) 3 reasons: lack of familiarity concerning what constitutes plagiarism, lack of time, or laziness. Plagiarism does not merely consist of the obvious (i.e., submitting a paper that someone else wrote). Plagiarism occurs whenever sources of ideas or words are not properly cited. I will be happy to help you learn how to properly cite sources, etc., and I remind you that extensions may be available if you think to ask in time. Also, there is a handout on reserve at the library I would like for you to read about plagiarism. Any instance of academic dishonesty that does occur will be dealt with very strictly according to Hanover College’s policies.
**Note - the 5th Edition of the APA Manual is now available and multiple copies are on reserve at Duggan Library**
In addition to the assigned readings from the 4th Edition of the Publication Manual, you will be held responsible for following the rules and guidelines described in the following portions of the manual:
Basic Grammar, pp. 31-45
The Very Nitty Gritty:
Punctuation, capitalization,
abbreviation, pp. 62-89
Use of Headings, 90-93
Quotes & Citations in the text, pp. 95-98
Numbers, pp. 99-105
Writing up your Statistical
Results, pp. 111-119
When & How to Make
Tables (pp. 120-141) and Figures (pp. 141-162)
Using Appendixes, pp.
166-167
Citing references in the
text (pp. 168-174) and on your Reference list (pp. 174-222)
Typing your manuscript (spacing, margins, order of
parts of manuscript, etc.):
pp. 239 – 242 and pp. 248 - 255
Comments:
You may have been instructed in previous psychology classes to conform to some subset of the APA guidelines for writing your papers. Welcome to what is probably your first exposure to APA style in all its glory! This will probably seem very tedious (okay, it IS very tedious), but it is important. One goal of this course is to teach you how to write a clear, organized, APA-style research paper. APA style will haunt you if you continue on to graduate school in psychology. Even if you don’t, however, you will have to follow some sort of guidelines no matter where you go or what you write in the future. At the very least, you will certainly always need to be clear, organized and grammatically accurate in your writing. Consider learning APA style to be a vigorous exercise in writing well.
I strongly encourage you to begin
acquainting yourself with the Publication Manual and the rules in it NOW. (Lesson one: forget EVERYTHING you learned about “MLA” style.) Trying to make
your paper conform to APA guidelines the night before it is due will make you
crazy and result, probably, in a not-so-good paper. I suggest you tackle some subset of these rules in each homework
assignment and paper draft you turn in to me so that when it really counts (the
final versions of your research papers), you will be able to write in APA style
with ease.
I am ALWAYS happy to review drafts with
you, discuss any rules that are unclear to you, help you figure out which rule
applies, and help you understand HOW to use this manual (it can be confusing
initially). Please come to me with ANY
questions or problems. Unless you come
to me, however, I will assume that the manual is relatively clear to you. Generally, we will not explicitly address
APA style in class lectures or discussions.
Never hesitate to come to me with any questions or comments
you have. However, the web sites below might also be useful in answering questions,
presenting topics from a different perspective, etc. If any page won’t load,
you might try cutting off the last “phrase” of the address (after a “/”) and
surfing from the parent site.
WRITING YOUR PAPER (APA STYLE HELP):
Connie’s Handouts: Intro & Method;
Results & Discussion
http://www.psychwww.com/tipsheet/labrep.htm
ADVICE ON READING JOURNAL ARTICLES:
Connie’s Handout on Reading
Articles
http://adminwww.flinders.edu.au/CAS/readscience.html
CHOOSING, READING AND WRITING ABOUT JOURNAL ARTICLES (this
page is written as advice for a specific assignment, but contains many
generally useful tips):
http://chiron.valdosta.edu/dtwasieleski/artisumm.htm
STATISTICS HELP:
On-line stats text with interactive demonstrations: http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~lane/rvls.html
Statistics Glossary:
http://www.cas.lancs.ac.uk/glossary_v1.1/main.html
Statistical Calculator (does a few stats we use): https://www.ucla.edu/calculators/
METHODOLOGY HELP:
On-line Methodology textbook: http://trochim.human.cornell.edu/kb/index.htm
Internal Validity Work Problems: http://trochim.human.cornell.edu/tutorial/Martin/example.htm
INTERESTING SITES TO SURF:
A short paper on reasoning with statistics: http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~taflinge/evistats.html
¨Interesting
Newsclips (from the Statistical Assessment Service (STATS), a nonpartisan, non-profit
research organization devoted to the accurate use of scientific and
quantitative information in public policy debate): https://wwws.org/statswork/index.html
¨Dubious Data
(a.k.a. Fishiest Facts) Awards: https://wwws.org/awards/index.html