RESEARCH METHODS, Mon/Wed
Spring 2003
Office:
Bldg 39, 4066
Hours: T/R
Email: iiversen@unf.edu
A prerequisite for taking this
course is completion of Elementary Statistics or equivalent with a grade of C
or higher. Students who do not meet this requirement and students who are
currently taking statistics are not allowed to take Research Methods and must
therefore withdraw from the course.
I. Course Material:
Required:
1)
Bordens, K. S. & Abbott, B. B.
Research Design and Methods: A process
approach. 5 th Ed.
Mayfield Publishing Company, 2002.
2)
Bordens, K. S. & Abbott, B. B.
Study guide to accompany: Research Design
and methods.
Mayfield Publishing Company, 2002.
3)
APA Publication Manual, 5th ed.
II. Course Objective:
This
course is organized according to the following assumptions and objectives.
1.
This is a required course and, as such, should acquaint you with the various
methods of scientific inquiry common in the field of psychology. The lectures
and text materials as well as exams address this objective.
2.
You will acquire knowledge about research planning, research design, and data
analysis. In addition, an important objective of this class is for you to learn
to search and review scientific literature as well as to write about
experimental findings. The APA‑style exercise, the APA‑style
experimental report, and the APA‑style literature review requirements
address this objective. You will also learn to articulate issues related to
research methods. The class presentation and class discussions address this
objective.
III. Teaching Methods:
Lectures
will detail particular issues from the chapter and workbook material and give
supplemental information. Overheads and video will be used on occasion. Class
discussions and student participation are strongly encouraged. Questions on
exams will be selected from material we cover in class (including videos,
homework, class demonstrations, and class presentations) as well as from assigned
material in the textbook and the workbook that we do not have time to cover in
class. The workbook is very useful, and you are strongly encouraged to work
with it on your own outside of class time (i.e., it contains practice
multiple-choice questions).
As
part of the learning process, you should give a brief class presentation on an
issue relevant to the general theme of research methods in psychology. Class
presentations illustrate the application of methods and research findings and
thereby broaden the scope of methods in psychology. Material from class
presentations is included on the exams.
You
will come to learn particular methods of data analysis including some methods
of graphical presentation of data. We will perform some actual research, and we
will analyze the data in the class so that you can learn the methods of
analysis step by step from a hands‑on experience.
IV. Course Requirements:
There
are three exams. The first exam will partly cover material you are already
familiar with such as drawing and interpreting graphs, calculations regarding
central tendency, and some basic statistics (these are prerequisites for the
course anyway). Exams consist of multiple‑choice questions, short‑answer
questions, and questions regarding data analysis that may include drawing
graphs. It is recommended that you bring a ruler and a calculator for each
exam.
Each student will be required to prepare:
1) three one‑page summaries of
published
research
articles (research summaries).
2) various homework assignments
3) a short exercise in APA‑style
writing (about 5 text pages)
4) an experimental report in APA style
(about 10 text pages)
5) a literature review in APA style (minimum
10 text pages)
6) a presentation for the class (about 10 minutes)
1: A Research Summary is a short summary of
a single published research article. From a list of such articles supplied by
the instructor you select three to read and summarize, with one summary for
each assignment. The main purpose of doing these summaries is for you to make
contact with some existing literature and learn how to read it and how to
summarize it for other people. These articles are found in the scientific
journals in the UNF library.
2: To facilitate your learning regarding how
to write an experimental report, we perform some exercises in class on writing
abstracts, formattingTables of data, and describing results from experiments.
There is some homework associated with these exercises, and this homework is
graded.
3: The APA‑style Exercise serves to familiarize you with the style guidelines
generated by the American Psychological
Association (APA) regarding preparation of scientific reports. The
objective of the exercise is for you to learn the basic rules of formatting a manuscript.
For the exercise we will focus mainly on formatting a manuscript. Therefore,
there will be very little text to write. In class, we do a simple experiment
and analyze the results as well as discuss why it was done and what the results
mean. From this material you will prepare a very short article in APA-style,
the APA-style exercise report.
4: The APA‑style Experimental Report describes a more comprehensive experiment we all
do in class. Each student serves as a subject in an experiment on perceptual
illusions. The data from the experiment are your results. In addition, your
report should make contact with some of the available literature on the
relevant subject matter, which you can find in the library. It is your
responsibility to search for, locate, read, understand, and write about this
literature.
5: The APA‑style Literature Review describes in summary form some already published
research. You choose the topic of your review from a list of topics supplied by
the instructor. Based on your own reading of 5-10 published research articles
on a particular topic, you write a review that outlines the reasons for the
research, the main points of the research design, some results from this
research, the implications of the results, and some suggestions for future
research. The literature review should be based on publications that can be
found in the UNF library or its electronic databases. Consult with the
instructor if an exception to this is necessary. Because the literature review
is the third APA style paper in this class, APA style mistakes are graded
harder for this assignment than for the previous assignments.
6: The Class
Presentation
summarizes a particular research method from a published experimental report
that you choose from a list provided by the instructor. The topic of your
presentation should be different from the topic of your literature review. Class presentations should focus on the methods
used in conducting the research and on the results. Each student must show at least
two overheads of method and results during the presentations. Try to avoid
showing Tables of results since they do not present well on overheads; show
graphs instead. Each student who presents in class should prepare a one‑page
summary of the class presentation to be given to the other students. The main
points of the class presentation material will appear on the exams. Class
presentations are graded.
Each
assignment involving written material must be typewritten. For late papers, 5
points are subtracted for each calendar day the paper is late. Papers are due in class when class starts on the due date (see course schedule). You must personally present the
paper to the instructor. So, papers delivered under the door to my office
before, during, or after class time on the due date are considered late by one
day. For example, if you hand in your paper one calendar day after the due date
it is considered late by two days and thus you will have 10 points subtracted
from the paper.
Computer/printer/ink/disk/paper/typist
problems or car trouble and traffic jams etc. are not accepted as excuses for
late papers. The only valid excuses are those that can be documented
officially, such as medical problems.
Ethics: The student handbook describes the UNF policies of
Academic Integrity (http://www.unf.edu/studentaffairs/handbook/handbook.pdf),
pages 21-22. Issues related to cheating, fabrication, plagiarism, and
dishonesty, etc. are described here. You should read these pages. The
instructor will assume that you are familiar with and abide by these policies.
For example, if you engage in plagiarism you will automatically get an F for
the course, and the instructor will forwarded a letter to that effect to the
Chairperson of the Psychology Department, to the Dean of Student Affairs, and
to the Dean of Arts of Sciences.
V. Grading:
Each
exam contributes up to 50 grading points. The APA-style exercise, the
experimental report, and the literature review each contribute 20, 40, and 50
points, respectively. The APA-style assignments are graded for adherence to the
APA style, the content, understanding of the issues reported, and the overall
presentation (typing, spelling, etc.) The class presentation will earn you up
to 20 points.
Exam
I 50
Exam
II 50
Exam
III 50
Homework
10
Three
Research Summaries (in total) 10
APA‑style
Exercise 20
APA‑style
Experimental Report 40
APA‑style
Literature Review 50
Class
Presentation 20
Total:
300
Your
final grade is based on the following table:
300‑270
= A
269‑240
= B
239‑200
= C
199‑150
= D
149‑ 0 = F
Extra Credit: Up to 14 extra points in total can be earned for the semester. One source is showing your completed APA-style papers to the instructor before the due date. The purpose of showing it is for you to get some simple feedback on the APA style and the overall content. The instructor will not directly read the paper word by word but will go through it to catch big mistakes. To earn this extra credit you must present the completed paper no later than one class period prior to a due date. You earn 2, 3, and 3 points for the exercise, the experimental report, and the literature review, respectively. After you get the feedback you can take the paper home and correct mistakes before it is due. Another source of extra credit is that you can earn 2 points for each of the three APA style papers when you personally deliver the paper on time at the beginning of class on the due date and remain in class for that entire class period.
In
addition to the points earned, it is required for a final grade of C or higher
that all non‑exam assignments are completed. This means that for you to
pass the course (C or higher) you must turn in the three APA‑style
manuscripts, the three Research Summaries, and give a class presentation in
addition to having a total point score of 200 or higher.
This
point-based grading system allows for each and every student to earn an A in this course. Thus, there is no grading on a curve.
Wed 8
Syllabus and
Introduction
Mon 13 Describe
Data and Read Graphs Chap
12
(pp.
346-374)
Wed 15 continued
Mon 20 Holiday
Wed 22 continued
Mon 27 continued
Wed 29 EXAM 1 (Chap 12)
Mon 3 Developing
Ideas for Research Chap
2
Wed 5 Visit
to library Chap
3
Mon 10 Library Assignment Due
Discussion
of library assignment
Discussion
of actual research publication (handout)
Do Research in Class
Wed 12 Reporting
Research Results Chap
15 &
APA
Manual
Mon 17 APA
style continued
Wed 19 Do Research in Class
APA-style exercise due
Mon 24 Choosing
Research Designs Chap
4
Discussion
of class research
Wed 26 Single-subject
designs Chap
11
Mon 3 Single-subject
designs continued
Wed 5 continued
Res Sum #3 Due
Mon 10 continued
Wed 12 Validity,
reliability, scales
Chap 5
(Begin
Literature Review)
Mon 17 Spring Break
Wed 19 Spring Break
Mon 24 Choosing
and using subjects Chap
6 (pp. 148-152)
Sampling techniques Chap 8 (pp. 239-248)
Wed 26 Summing
up
Mon 31 EXAM 2
(Chaps 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, & 11 and experiment)
Wed 2 Between-subjects
designs Chap
9
Mon 7 continued
Wed 9 continued
Mon 14 continued
Wed 16 continued
Mon 21 Using
non-experimental designs Chap
7
Wed 23 continued
and summing up
Exam Week:
Mon 28 (