Dates: May 16 to August 19

Transcription

1 Instructor: John Sparrow, Ph.D. Dates: May 16 to August 19 Johnson State College External Degree Program PSY-2410-JY01 QE-Research Methods in Psychology Syllabus Summer 2016 Location: Online using Moodle ( ADA Statement: Students with disabilities who believe that they may need accommodations in this class are encouraged to contact JSC s Learning Specialist in Academic Services, as soon as possible to ensure that accommodations, if needed, are implemented in a timely fashion. Please call or Richard.Simmons@jsc.edu. Academic Honesty: (from JSC Catalog) Students are expected to conform to the highest standards of academic honesty in all of their academic work at Johnson State College. Academic dishonesty in any form is prohibited and unacceptable. Acts of dishonesty for which a student may be disciplined include, but are not limited to, receiving or providing unauthorized assistance on an examination and plagiarizing the work of others in writing assignments. The American Heritage Dictionary defines plagiarism in the following way: To steal or use (the ideas or writings of another) as one s own. Students are responsible for knowing what specific acts constitute plagiarism; if students are uncertain as to whether a particular act constitutes plagiarism, they should consult with their instructors before turning in assigned work. Texts: Texts are available through the JSC bookstore. Call or go to Important Note: If you re not in the habit of regularly checking your JSC account, please get in the habit! Your JSC account is the only way I have of contacting you on a consistent basis, and I may make use of this mechanism for touching-base regarding important course-related information! TEXTBOOKS American Psychological Association. (2009). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association (REQUIRED: Designated as "APA" in course calendar; EAN # )

2 Sagan, C. (1996). The demon-haunted world: Science as a candle in the dark. New York: Ballantine Books. (REQUIRED: Designated as "SGN" in course calendar; EAN # ) Shaughnessy, J. J., Zechmeister, E. B., & Zechmeister, J. S. (2015). Research methods in psychology (10th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Education. (REQUIRED: Designated as "SZZ" in course calendar; EAN # ) COURSE DESCRIPTION This course is designed to give the student the tools needed to conduct scientific psychological research. We will start out broadly by examining the nature of scientific inquiry. Later on in the semester, specific research methods will be investigated. Details of experimental/quasi-experimental and descriptive research designs will be outlined in class. In addition, special emphasis will be placed on the critical evaluation and analysis of experimental designs. What does it mean to have a "good" experiment? How are hypotheses formulated and tested? How are logical conclusions drawn from the given data? Where does one start in developing a research program? How does the issue of ethics enter into the realm of psychological investigation? All of these issues will be pursued in describing how psychologists search for knowledge in their quest to understand human and animal behavior. Students will be expected to demonstrate and expand their critical reasoning skills through the quizzes, online activities and discussions, and formal laboratory paper assignments. Online discussions will be centered around an analytical component that will require the insight of the students. PREREQUISITE KNOWLEDGE This course is primarily designed for psychology majors although students with other majors are welcome. Psy-2410 requires that students have a general knowledge of basic arithmetic and simple algebraic operations. Specifically, it is assumed that students have successfully completed PSY-1010 (Introduction to Psychology) and MAT-2030 (Probability and Statistics). If you d like to review some of the main points of using statistics, go to the SZZ textbook website page, Statistics Primer ( ). In addition, this course has been designated Quantitatively Enriched (QE) by Johnson State College. Given this designation, students will be developing quantitative reasoning skills as they apply to research methods, statistics, and data interpretation within the field of psychology. Please note that prior passage of the QR Assessment or of the Introduction to QR course is a prerequisite to this course. WRITING & PLAGIARISM PSY-2410 is a writing-intensive course. Students enrolled in this course will be involved extensively in the process of writing. Hence, substantial writing (including prewriting, drafting, revision, editing, etc.) will form the foundation for much of the learning that takes place in this course. Please note that plagiarism falls under the heading of "cheating." When citing sources in your paper assignments, please give credit where credit is due! Further note that it is not acceptable to use/reuse a paper that has been/will be submitted for another course.

3 Plagiarism is a very serious offense, so note that ignorance of these policies does not constitute an excuse! Further note that students have FAILED this course due to issues of plagiarism! ONLINE QUIZZES & ACTIVITIES Within Moodle there will be a multiple-choice, online quiz for most chapters of the SZZ textbook. In addition, various online activities will be assigned for selected chapters. These additional activities are accessed through the textbook web site (not Moodle: ), under the Student Edition link, where you will have a variety of options within each chapter (Note: some of the links within the publisher s web page may not be active if so, don t worry about it!). See the Course Calendar for details. ONLINE READING DISCUSSIONS Throughout the semester, I will ask you to respond to the readings from the SZZ textbook and the Sagan book. After reading through the designated chapters, please focus, in writing, on the questions that I will be posting on Moodle. I expect your responses to be thoughtful and detailed, and based on the points that are raised in the readings. At a MINIMUM, you are required to post your substantive responses on Moodle AT LEAST three times a week, on AT LEAST three different days -- and within this minimum, you are required to post AT LEAST once from Monday through Wednesday; AT LEAST once from Thursday through Friday; and AT LEAST once from Saturday through Sunday of each week. Of course, you are encouraged to go beyond this minimum standard and post more frequently! The intent of this policy is to help spread-out the discussions across the entire week. The Monday of every week will represent the start of a new discussion; the discussions every week will end Sunday evening, at 11:55pm. Please note that once an online discussion has ended for a given week, there is no way to make-up for that missed exercise. RESEARCH PROJECT As an ongoing, course-long project, students will be developing an APA-format research report dealing with a topic within the area of experimental psychology. This written report will be broken-down into a series of writing assignments that will, collectively, represent all of the relevant sections included in an APA-format laboratory report: 1.) Annotated Bibliography; 2.) Introduction (literature review) and Statement of Hypothesis; 3.) Method Section; 4.) Results and Discussion Sections; 5.) Complete APA-format Research Report. The idea here is for the student to pursue an interesting topic within the realm of experimental psychology, generate some researchable questions and hypotheses, outline a methodology, collect data (using an online laboratory site), analyze the results using various statistical procedures, and finally, discuss the implications of the class results. At the end of the semester, all students are expected to post and discuss the results of the project by participating in an online virtual research conference. More information concerning this research project (including due dates for the various sections) will be provided in a separate document (see Research Project.pdf in the Course Documents folder in Moodle; also, check out the sample lab reports in the same area!).

4 You will be expected to summarize the introduction, method, results, and discussion using the style of the American Psychological Association (APA). We will be covering this formatting style in later discussions. In addition, Chapter 13 in the Shaughnessy, Zechmeister, & Zechmeister book discusses this format. The papers are to be WORD-PROCESSED doublespaced, and should strictly follow the APA guidelines. Papers that are poorly formatted will not be accepted. Please submit all paper assignments via the Paper Steps 1-5 links in Moodle. If possible, please complete all writing assignments using Microsoft Word and attach a.docx extension to all Word files. If you don t have access to MS Word, please save files as rich text format files and submit the files with a.rtf extension (please note, however, you re likely to lose some of your formatting with.rtf files). Please note that I cannot open other types of files, such as those created with WordPerfect, Pages, Google Docs, or OpenOffice! Also, when you submit files to Moodle, please use the following filename format for all files: <your last name><first initial><step number>.docx for MS Word files, or <your last name><first initial><step number>.rtf for rich-text files. For example, if I were to submit a Word file for the third step of the research project, it would be: sparrowjstep3.docx Please use this filenaming convention as it makes it a lot easier for me to keep track of the many files being submitted! (Note: Do not use the # symbol in your filenames as this isn t recognized by Moodle!) Papers will be graded for both content and style - if there are questions concerning these matters, please contact me. Part of the process of science requires research findings to be put in writing using a clear, succinct format - that is the goal of these writing assignments. Please note that FOR EVERY DAY THAT WRITTEN ASSIGNMENTS ARE HANDED IN LATE, GRADES WILL BE LOWERED BY ONE LEVEL (E.G., A GRADE OF "B-" WILL BE DROPPED TO A "C+" ON THE FIRST DAY, A "C" ON THE SECOND DAY, A "D" ON THE FOURTH DAY, ETC.). SUMMARY OF STUDENT EVALUATION Final course grades will be calculated based on the following percentage breakdown: Online Quizzes & Activities -- 10% Online Reading Discussions -- 15% Research Project: 1.) Annotated Bibliography; -- 10% 2.) Introduction and Statement of Hypothesis; -- 15% 3.) Method Section; -- 10% 4.) Results and Discussion Sections; -- 15% 5.) Complete APA-format Research Report -- 20% Preparation & Participation -- 5% Total = 100%

5 Final grades will be based on the following percentage cutoff points: A+ = % A = 93-96% 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 = 00-59% A FEW FINAL WORDS... As your instructor, you should know that I expect a great deal from my students. You should take your work very seriously and make a strong attempt at keeping up with the reading assignments, paper assignments, discussions, etc. Please note that all of the information outlined in this syllabus is subject to slight modification throughout the course. If any substantive changes in the syllabus are warranted, I will let you know well ahead of time. Let's work on having both an educational and enjoyable semester of Research Methods in Psychology! TENTATIVE COURSE CALENDAR Each week you should: 1) Check Moodle for any course-related messages/announcements; 2) Read the assigned material; 3) Visit the Forums in Moodle and respond to the reading questions; 4) Visit the text website for the assigned chapters in SZZ ( ) and complete the specified activities (see below) WEEK 1 (MAY 16) Introduction: A Look at Research in Psychology [SZZ: Chs. 1, 2; SGN: Preface; Ch. 1] Activities: Moodle Quizzes and SZZ Online Investigation WEEK 2 (MAY 23) Observation [SZZ: Ch. 4 (pp ; ; Ch. 11 (pp ); SGN: Chs. 2, 3, 4] Activities (Ch. 4 ONLY): Moodle Quiz and SZZ Online Investigation WEEK 3 (MAY 30) Scientific Writing and APA format [SZZ: Ch. 13; APA: Ch. 1; Ch. 2; skim Chs. 3-8 & Appendix; SGN: Chs. 5, 6]

6 WEEK 4 (JUNE 6) Searching the Literature in Psychology (See the PsycINFO & PsycArticles databases under the Databases A-Z link at ) WEEK 5 (JUNE 13) Surveys and Questionnaires [SZZ: Ch. 5; Ch. 11 (pp ; ); SGN: Chs. 7, 8, 9] Activities (Ch. 5 ONLY): Moodle Quiz and SZZ Online Investigation WEEK 6 (JUNE 20) Alternatives to Observation and Surveys [SZZ: Ch. 4 (pp ); SGN: Chs. 10, 11] Activities: SZZ Online Investigation WEEK 7 (JUNE 27) Independent Groups Designs [SZZ: Ch. 6; Ch. 11 (pp ; ); Ch. 12 (pp ; ); SGN: Chs. 12, 13, 14] Activities (Ch. 6 ONLY): Moodle Quiz and SZZ Online Investigation WEEK 8 (JULY 4) Within Subjects Designs [SZZ: Ch. 7; Ch. 11 (pp ); Ch. 12 (pp ; pp ); SGN: Chs. 15, 16] Activities (Ch. 7 ONLY): Moodle Quiz WEEK 9 (JULY 11) Complex Designs [SZZ: Ch. 8; Ch. 12 (pp ); SGN: Chs. 17, 18, 19, 20, 21] Activities (Ch. 8 ONLY): Moodle Quiz and SZZ Online Investigation WEEK 10 (JULY 18) Complex Designs (continued) [Note: Statistical tables appear in the Appendix of SZZ] WEEK 11 (JULY 25) Single-Case Research Designs [SZZ: Ch. 9] WEEK 12 (AUGUST 1) Quasi-Experimental Designs [SZZ: Ch. 10; SGN: Chs. 22, 23, 24, 25] ]

7 WEEK 13 (AUGUST 8) Ethics in Research [SZZ: Ch. 3] WEEK 14 (AUGUST 15) Ethics in Research [SZZ: Ch. 3] (continued) Online review of student research projects (See Moodle for details)