Psych 002 – Methods Syllabus 1

Psychology 002-01, 002-02, 002-03 Research Methods & Statistics Fall 2014 T/TH 11:00 – 12:15, WGR 206

VERSION: 8/26/2014 Dr. Rebecca M. Ryan 301G White Gravenor [email protected] Office Hours: Tuesday/Thursday 9:00 – 10:00 am. Other times by appointment (please email). Course website: Blackboard site.

GRADUATE TEACHING FELLOWS: Elisabeth McClure (01) ([email protected]) (recitation: 2:00-2:50pm F; STM G40) Alaina Pearce (02) ([email protected]) (recitation: 10:00-10:50pm F; STM G40) Elise Cardinal (03) ([email protected]) (recitation: 11:00-11:50am F; Reiss 282)

Prerequisite: General Psychology 001 & Math 040 (or equivalent). COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course offers an introduction to the logic of research design and to descriptive and inferential statistics. We aim to help you learn the basic concepts of research methods in psychology. By the end of this course you should be able to:  think more clearly about what constitutes evidence for or against a conclusion  read, understand, and critically evaluate research  design basic research studies  perform and interpret basic analyses using statistical software  communicate research findings to other psychologists These aims correspond to the departmental Learning Goals 2 (Epistemological Foundations), 3 (Application of Psychology), and 4 (Values in Psychology).

Course meetings consist of two weekly lectures and a required recitation section. Lectures will cover major concepts in research design and statistics; you will apply these principles by designing and conducting your own research project. Recitation section will focus on the research project and on learning to use statistical software (e.g., SPSS), and will also cover concepts from class through discussion and activities.

You are expected to attend all class meetings plus your assigned weekly recitation section. You are responsible for all of the material discussed in class and recitation, and for all announcements and handouts from both. This is important, because many days we will make a homework assignment due in the next class. Also, because of the skill-learning nature of this course we will sometimes change our schedule or reading assignment to adjust to our progress. We’ll put such changes on Blackboard most of the time, but you need to monitor announcements in class and recitation, just in case. Exam dates will be changed only for natural disasters, or the equivalent. An attendance sheet will be circulated for your signature at recitation and at class meetings, and attendance will count towards your final grade. Psych 002 – Methods Syllabus 2

PLEASE ATTEND THE RECITATION SECTION YOU REGISTERED FOR. YOU CANNOT SUBSTITUTE RECITATION SECTIONS. REQUIRED TEXTS: Graziano, A. M., & Raulin, M. L. (2013). Research methods: A process of inquiry (8th Ed). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Nolan, S. A., & Heinzen, T. E. (2014). Essentials of statistics for the behavioral sciences (2nd Edition). New York: Worth.

*Note, you may purchase either the online only (Statsportal) or text version of Nolan and Heinzen. Both are available through the bookstore. The online only versions are less expensive.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS: Exams (180 total points). There will be four exams, on the dates indicated on the class schedule; the Final Exam (#4) will occur during finals. The first three will emphasize material covered since the last exam, but questions concerning earlier material will be included as well. Thus, the exams are cumulative because the material is. The final exam will test all material covered during the course, so it is fully cumulative. Should it be necessary to cancel an exam due to weather (e.g., official GU cancellation), the exam will be given in the immediately following class. Check Blackboard and email in such circumstances. All exams are worth 60 points, however, your lowest score of the first three will be dropped when calculating your final grade.

Note that exams will focus on skills/facts learned from class, Graziano and from the Williams text. Not all of the design concepts covered in the Graziano text will be covered during lecture, however, all of the concepts covered in Graziano could be covered on a test. Thus, if there is a concept you do not understand in Graziano that falls within the assigned reading, please ask me or your recitation TF to clarify the concept. Also note, most exam questions will not test your definitional knowledge of design or statistical concepts or techniques. Rather, most exam questions will assume your knowledge of concepts or techniques and require you to apply your understanding to a novel circumstance. Do not simply memorize definitions or formulae. Understand them.

Lecture-Based Quizzes (20 points). There will be very short (1-2 questions) quizzes after each Thursday lecture (with some exceptions) testing you on concepts learned in class that week. Each quiz will be worth very few points. The goal will be to highlight concepts you may not have fully grasped during lecture to provide areas of study focus for upcoming exams.

Recitation-Based Assignments (20 points). You will receive a separate schedule for your recitation sections with topics and details of assignments on it. There will be other supporting documents on Blackboard.

Research Project (180 points). You must complete a research project in which you apply what you have learned in this course to propose, design, conduct, analyze, and write up a study addressing a question of your choice. A lot of your recitation section time will be devoted to learning related to the project. We encourage you to work with one to two other students on the Psych 002 – Methods Syllabus 3 project. Typically this enables you to test more subjects, and you will have colleagues with whom you can design your study and think about what your results mean. If you do work with one or two other people, each member of the group must nonetheless turn in a separate proposal, introduction and methods, results, and discussion. Thus, each member will receive independent grades on each part. Although members of the same group will be describing the same research question, procedure, and results, each must work independently to demonstrate their understanding and application of research methods and statistics.

The research project is the major assignment in the course and one to be worked on all semester. Begin immediately to think of possible topics/questions. You should be asking yourself after every lecture and every reading assignment, “How does this material affect my approach to the research problem I have chosen?” You should be applying everything you learn in this course to preparing the project. Also you should begin searching for previously published research on your topic to help you design your own very early in the semester.

Proposal (45 points). Two of your peers, your TF, and I will read this proposal, and a group of your peers will advise me as to whether or not the proposed study is ethical and methodologically sound. So provide as much detail as possible in the space available. To begin, pick two starting papers on your chosen topic, at least one of which that has been published within the past 5 years. These papers must be empirical articles, not review papers or chapters. Your research proposal should propose an original experiment that extends or challenges the prior studies. It should be written in the future tense because it is describing an experiment that has yet to be run. Photocopy your starting papers and attach them to your submission. Keep your “paper trail” (i.e. all your photocopies articles and notes) until your research proposal is returned. The page limit for the proposal (not including the reference section or cover page) is 7 double-spaced type-written pages using 12 point font and at least 1 inch margins on all sides. I will not read any text beyond the 7 pages. This will mean that you will have to be very concise and precise. Organization and clarity do matter for the proposal and both drafts. Always number pages and proofread.

The proposal should include the following sections with the following labels. You should write in full sentences and paragraphs; this is not an outline.

- Cover page (not counted in page limit) - Title. Here you state the tentative title of your project and your name as author. (Title should be the same for all team members).

- Objective. This contains approximately 2 - 4 sentences explaining the purpose of your study, what you are going to do, and why.

- Introduction. Write an introduction (approx. 2 pages) in which you review the general topic area, summarize relevant literature, culminating in a critical evaluation of one particular issue that could be addressed empirically. Cite and discuss your starting papers and other relevant papers that you have found during your literature search. You must cite at least 10 articles, including the 2 starting papers. At least 7 of Psych 002 – Methods Syllabus 4

these must be original empirical articles, while 3 may be review articles or chapters or citations for measures. Clarify what gap in the literature your study would fill and why that gap is important to fill. Your literature review should also establish the historical context of previous work, and your proposed study, and the theories upon which prior work has drawn.

- Hypothesis. State your hypothesis. Your hypothesis should follow logically from a theoretical framework and empirical support provided in your literature review. It should provide a hypothetical answer to the question you posed at the end of your review (and in your objective) grounded in theory and prior research.

- Proposed Method. This method section should include separate participants, apparatus, design, and procedure sections (approx. 3 pages). Participants should include proposed subject recruitment, and apparatus should include description of materials your experiment will use, including any questionnaires or surveys. The design should specify dependent and independent variables you will be using and the number of factors and levels (in design notation), if applicable. It should also outline methods of control that you will be using and why (i.e. what sorts of confounds will you be guarding against?). Also state variables that you will not be controlling.

- Proposed data analysis. (approx. 1 page) This section should state what aspects of your data you think will be important, and what you expect to find (i.e. what you predict). For example, you might state how you will condense your data, and what cells will be compared to each other. You should also outline the statistical analyses you plan to use (e.g., ANOVA, Chi-square, t-test) given the measurement of your dependent and independent variables and the hypotheses you aim to test. However, you will submit a more detailed data analysis plan later in the semester.

- Ethical Considerations. (1/2 page) This section should describe what you will do to ensure fairness to participants and what remaining concerns you have, if any, about the ethics of the study. You should include your informed consent procedure (and documentation) as an appendix to the proposal.

- References (start on a new page – these pages are not counted in page limit). This contains a list of the articles you have cited in your paper. Again, you must cite at least 10 articles. Use APA style.

Please turn in a total of 3 copies of your completed proposal. One of the copies should have the title and your name on the cover page. The two remaining copies should have only the title, without your name, to make the anonymous peer review process possible.

Peer review (20 points). After proposals are due, we will give you two proposals on which you are to serve as the primary and secondary reviewer. You will write a brief critique of both proposals you have been assigned, putting each review on a separate piece of paper. Your critique of each proposal should list the title and “author number” of the proposal you are reviewing, and your own peer review number (labeled “reviewer number”). Please turn in two Psych 002 – Methods Syllabus 5 copies of each review, one with your name written next to your reviewer number. This copy will come to me for grading and the anonymous one will go to the author of the proposal in question.

Your review should comment constructively on aspects of the design of the study and outline in a few sentences the features of the study that are relevant for deciding on soundness of design and fairness to participants. You should indicate whether you think the study is ethical and why or why not. If you think it isn’t ethical, try to suggest alternatives or ways of fixing it. Write this review so that it is sufficient to explain the study to the review group (most of whom won’t have read it) and so that they will be informed enough to vote on whether or not the study is methodologically sound and acceptable ethically. For the proposal on which you are the primary reviewer, your written comments will serve as notes for your presentation to the group.

On Peer Review day, the primary reviewer will provide the summary described in the previous paragraph, the secondary reviewer will agree or disagree with specific points, and the group will discuss and then vote on whether the study is acceptable. The outcome of this vote should be recorded on the review and that will go to author (the one without the reviewer’s name). The above procedure of the peer group review discussion is based on that used in the NIH “study sections”, the peer review groups who review the scientific merit of grant proposals submitted to the NIH for funding.

Components of Final Paper for Research Project:

Introduction/Methods (40 points). This should follow the format outlined in your APA style writing guide (see Research Project Links in the external links page of Blackboard) and the “Ingredients of an Introduction” handout. The page limit for the text is 6 double-spaced type- written (not including the references or appendices). You should include an Appendix containing a copy of any questionnaire or instructions you gave your participants or stimuli that you will present. Remember though that the paper itself should contain enough information that the reader would not need to have the Appendix to understand your study.

Data Analysis Plan (10 points). (1 page) This assignment helps insure that you have a sound plan for analyzing the data you’ve been collecting. You should detail step by step how you will describe your data and how you will test your hypotheses statistically. Begin with descriptive statistics. List the measures of central tendency, shape, and spread you will report in describing your dependent variable(s). List any other important descriptive statistics you will report about your sample (e.g., % male/female; mean age). Next, clarify how you will test your hypotheses statistically, which inferential method you will use (e.g., ANOVA, independent samples t-test, chi-square) and exactly how you will run that test (which groups you will compare on which dependent variables, etc.). Provide a clear rationale for your choices. To insure that you know how to conduct these analyses in SPSS, write the syntax you will use to run the analyses. Include notes before each command explaining what the command will tell you/do. You should append the SPSS syntax to the data analysis plan.

Final Results plus Discussion (45 points). (5 pages) As you can see, the project is structured as a series of assignments in which each section of the final paper are graded and Psych 002 – Methods Syllabus 6 receive feedback. Just as your Introduction and Method benefit from revisions you make as a result of feedback on your proposal, and from what you have learned subsequently in the course, your final Results should incorporate feedback from your draft Results (not a graded assignment, but part of your recitation grade for participation). Your Discussion will provide the “take home message” of your study. In it, you should summarize your results, state whether they support your hypotheses, and interpret why or why not. Qualify the limitations of your study and provide any alternative explanations for your findings.

Poster presentation (20 points). You will share the final outcome of your research project with your class as well as members of the Psychology Department by displaying your results in the form of a “poster”. These posters will be displayed on walls of the hallway on the 3rd floor of WGR. This is a common method of presenting research at academic conferences. A separate handout with details and directions for the entire project will be provided early in the semester.

**Please note that the penalty for late submission of components of the project is one step deducted (e.g., B+ to B) if you turn it in one day late, one letter grade (e.g., B+ to C+) deducted if you turn it in between two and four days late, and an additional letter grade deducted for each additional week thereafter.

Your Course Grade. Your course grade will depend equally on lecture assessments (exams and lecture homework) and on assignments related to the final project. The details are as follows:

Lecture Assessments (50% of total) Project/Recitation Assessments (50% of total): Best 2 of first 3 exams: 15% (60 pts) each Homework/Attendance/Participation: 5% (20 pts) Final exam (during finals): 15% (60 pts) Proposal (7 pp): 11.25% (45 pts) Lecture-based quizzes: 5% (20 pts) Peer Review (2 pp): 5% (20 pts) Introduction/Method (6 pp): 10% (40 pts) Data Analysis plan (1 p (+ SPSS syntax)): (10 pts) Results + Disc (5 pp): 11.25% (45 pts) Poster Session: 5% (20 pts) The final grade will be computed as follows: (Total points/400)*100 The following grade scale will be used:

A course letter grade will be assigned as follows. If your average falls between categories, the lower grade will be awarded, though I will take class participation and attendance into account for borderline cases. 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 60-66; F <60. Psych 002 – Methods Syllabus 7

Research Methods & Statistics Class Schedule – Fall 2014 Psych 002 – Methods Syllabus 8

DATE CLASS TOPIC READING ASSIGNMENTS Aug 28 TH Introduction and organization GR Ch. 1 Research Design Sept 2 T Research Process and Types of studies GR Ch. 2 4 TH Variables (types, measurement, reliability) GR Ch. 3, 4 Question Due in Recitation 9 T Limits: Internal and External validity GR Ch. 7, 8 Revised Ques + Articles in 11 TH Limits: Internal and External validity GR Ch. 9 Recitation 16 T Study design: Between and Within subjects GR Ch. 10, 11 Annotated Bibliography 18 TH Factorial Design GR Ch. 12 Due in Recitation 23 T Main effects and interactions Annotated Outline Due in 25 TH Main effects and interactions Recitation 30 T Ethics in research Oct 2 TH EXAM #1 (covering up to Ethics) Descriptive Statistics 7 T Distributions, central tendency and variability NH 1, 2, 4 PROPOSAL DUE in 9 TH Normal Distributions, z-scores NH 6 Lecture 14 T IN CLASS PEER REVIEW 16 TH Hypothesis testing: z-test, p-values NH 7 Inferential Statistics 21 T Confidence intervals and power NH 8 Online NIH course due on 23 TH One sample t-test NH 9, pp.197-210 19th in recitation 28 T One sample t-test 30 TH T-test for two samples NH 9, pp.210-219 INTRO & METHODS DUE EXAM #2 (covering Distributions to one Nov 4 T sample T-test) 6 TH T-test for two samples NH 10 11 T ANOVA (f-test) NH 11 13 TH ANOVA (f-test) 18 T ANOVA/ Interactions and main effects NH 12 DRAFT DATA ANALYSIS 21 TH ANOVA/ Interactions and main effects PLAN due in recitation 25 T The chi-square NH 15 27 TH THANKSGIVING BREAK Dec 2 T EXAM #3 (covering up to Nov 21) 4 TH POSTER SESSION (WGR 3rd Floor) RESULTS & DISC DUE 13 SA FINAL EXAM (4-6pm) Psych 002 – Methods Syllabus 9

GENERAL COMMENTS

Knowledge versus Understanding. Be aware of the difference between knowledge and understanding, and the difference between understanding and wisdom. These are all different, but they are related. You must demonstrate knowledge and understanding to receive full credit.

Responsibility. You are responsible for your work in this class. This includes arriving sufficiently early to be seated and ready for class, peer review day, exams as well as turning in homework on time. Responsibility also means dealing with the consequences of your actions or misfortunes (including those related to your research project – research can be messy and frustrating!). In my class, I don’t give grades, you earn them.

Many of you will ask yourself at some point during the semester why we are covering some of the material you already covered in Math 040. I direct you first to the distinction between knowledge and understanding above. Math 040 provided basic knowledge of (some of the) statistical concepts we will use in this class. Here, your knowledge will deepen to the level of understanding, you will learn about more advanced statistics (e.g., ANOVA), and you will learn to APPLY that understanding to psychological research. That is a central aim of this class.

For those unconvinced by the argument above, PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE, which has been annotated for context:

Arthur Michelson: The precision of math, like poetry, gets to heart of things Arthur Michelson, who teaches at Beechwood School in Menlo Park, Calif., wrote this article for the Los Angeles Times. December 30, 2004 MICHELSON1230 American middle school {college students} don't much care that they're worse at math than their counterparts in Hong Kong and Finland. "I don't need it," my students say. "I'm gonna be a basketball star." Or a beautician, or a car mechanic, or a singer {or work on Wall Street}. It's also hard to get much of a rise out of adults over the fact, released earlier this year, that the United States ranked 28th out of 41 countries whose middle school students' math skills were tested by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. So what if we're tied Psych 002 – Methods Syllabus 10 with Latvia, while nations such as Japan and South Korea leave us in the dust? After all, when was the last time you used algebra? But math is not just about computing quadratic equations, knowing geometric proofs or balancing a checkbook. And it's not just about training Americans to become scientists. It has implicit value. It is about discipline, precision, thoroughness and meticulous analysis. It helps you see patterns, develops your logic skills, teaches you to concentrate and to separate truth from falsehood. These are abilities and qualities that distinguish successful people. Math helps you make wise financial decisions, but also informs you so you can avoid false claims from advertisers, politicians and others. It helps you determine risk. Some examples: • If a fair coin is tossed and eight heads come up in a row, most adults would gamble that the next toss would come up tails. But a coin has no memory. There is always a 50-50 chance. See you at the casino? • If you have no sense of big numbers, you can't evaluate the consequences of how government spends your money. Why should we worry? Let our kids deal with it. ... • Enormous amounts of money are spent on quack medicine. Many people will reject sound scientific studies on drugs or nutrition if the results don't fit their preconceived notions, yet they might leap to action after reading news stories on the results of small, inconclusive or poorly run studies. • After an airplane crash, studies show that people are more likely to drive than take a plane in spite of the fact that they are much more likely to be killed or injured while driving. Planes are not like copycat criminals. A plane is not more likely to crash just because another recently did. In fact, the most dangerous time to drive is probably right after a plane crash because so many more people are on the road. The precision of math, like poetry, gets to the heart of things. It can increase our awareness. Consider the Fibonacci series, in which each number is the sum of the preceding two, (0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 ...). Comparing each successive pair yields a relationship known as the Golden Ratio, which often shows up in nature and art. It's the mathematical underpinning of what we consider beautiful. You'll find it in the design of the Parthenon and the Mona Lisa, as well as in human proportion; for instance, in the size of the hand compared with the forearm and the forearm to the entire arm. Stephen Hawking's editor warned him that for every mathematical formula he wrote in a book, he would lose much of his audience. Yet more than a little is lost by dumbing things down. It is not possible to really understand science and the scientific method without understanding math. A rainbow is even more beautiful and amazing when we understand it. So is a lightning bolt, an ant or ourselves. Math gives us a powerful tool to understand our universe. I don't wish to overstate: Poetry, music, literature and the fine and performing arts are also gateways to beauty. Nothing we study is a waste. But the precision of math helps refine how we think in a very special way. How do we revitalize the learning of math? I don't have the big answer. I teach middle school {college} and try to find an answer one child {student} at a time. When I can get one to say, "Wow, that's tight," I feel the joy of a small victory.