Psychology 616 Spring 2012 Research Techniques for Non-Experimental Social Science Thursday 2-5:50PM GFS 212

Instructor: Dr. Stephen Read, 821 SGM, X-02291. Email: [email protected]

This class provides a survey of a number of different issues and techniques in psychological research and gives you hands on experience with them through bi-weekly projects. The techniques covered should be relevant to students in a number of different areas such as social, clinical, developmental, and aging. The aim of this class is to acquaint you with a broad array of techniques, rather than to make you an expert in any particular technique. The topics covered in this class will be:

Measurement: Development and analysis of scales Factor analysis as it relates to scale development Missing data. Cleaning up data. Survey Research Internet data collection Experimental and Quasi-experimental design and field research Observational research Event sampling. Diary studies. Analysis of data from dyads and groups. Content analysis and narrative analysis Meta-analysis (a technique for synthesizing and reviewing results from a number of studies) Causal modeling, structural equation modeling Focus groups

Class will be a mixture of lecture and discussion. Much of the discussion will focus on the class projects and problems that will be assigned. Typically, class projects will be discussed during the first hour or so of the class following the assignment of the project. Grades in the class will be based on students' performance on the class projects.

Readings for a given week should be done before that class period, because the classes will be based on those readings and your ability to successfully participate will depend on having done the readings.

Projects. Students will be assigned seven bi weekly projects, as well as an extensive scale development project that will carry over the entire semester. For the bi-weekly projects students will be required to develop a research hypothesis and associated research questions, and then design a study using the research technique that they are learning in that section of the course. These projects will be written up and turned in to be graded and critiqued.

1 Readings: Xeroxes and paperback books. The following books will be available at the bookstore.

DeVellis, R. F. (2011). Scale Development: Theory and applications. Sage Publications. [Paperback, ISBN: 9781412980449. 3rd edition Reis, H. T., & Judd, C. M. (Eds.). (2000). Handbook of Research Methods in Social and Personality Psychology. Cambridge Univ Pr [(Pap Txt); ISBN: 0521559030] Michael Borenstein, Larry V. Hedges, Julian P. T. Higgins, Hannah R. Rothstein (2009). Intro- duction to Meta-Analysis. Wiley. ISBN: 978-0-470-05724-7 Fink, A. (2009). How to Conduct Surveys: A Step-by-Step Guide Fourth Edition. SAGE Publications. [Paperback, ISBN: 9781412966689] Barbour, R. Doing Focus Groups. SAGE Publications. [Paperback, ISBN: 9780761949787] Xeroxes will be posted on Blackboard

Strongly recommended

Tabachnik, B., & Fidell, L. (2007). Using Multivariate Statistics (5th edition). Allyn & Bacon; ISBN 9780205459384

SCHEDULE OF CLASSES: TOPICS AND READINGS

Thursday

1/12 Introduction

1/19 Measurement: Scale Construction

DeVellis, R. F. Scale Development.

John, O. P., & Benet-Martinez, V. Measurement: Reliability, Construct Validation and Scale Construction. (pp. 339-369). In Reis & Judd.

Tabachnik & Fidell, chap. 13, 635-707 "Principal Components and Factor Analysis"[BB]

Project: Develop scales, administer questionnaire and analyze scales. Write up results. The completion of this project will be spread over a number of weeks of the class and will be due at the end of class. Administration of scale could be part of Internet data collection project. See Handout for questions to be answered in analyses.

1/26 Cleaning up your act: Cleaning up data. How to deal with missing data.

McClelland, G. H. Nasty data: Unruly, ill-mannered observations can ruin your analysis. (pp. 393-411). In Reis & Judd.

Tabachnik & Fidell, chap 4, 57-125 "Cleaning up your act: Screening data prior to analysis. [BB]

Graham, J. W. (2009). Missing Data Analysis: Making It Work in the Real World. Annual Review of Psychology. [BB] 2 2/2 Survey Research

Workshop on scales. Critique and discuss the items you have written.

Visser, P. S., Krosnick, J. A., & Lavrakas, P. L. Survey research. (pp. 223-252). In Reis & Judd.

Weisberg, H. F., Krosnick, J. A., & Bowen, B. D. (1996). An introduction to survey research, polling, and data analysis. Sage. pp. 1-170. [BB]

Project: Develop a simple telephone survey. Then design how to administer it, including a sampling plan, but do not actually administer it.

2/9 Survey Research continued

Fink, A. (2009). How to Conduct Surveys: A Step-by-Step Guide Fourth Edition.

Discuss the survey design

2/16 Internet: Gathering data on the Internet

Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of collecting data on the Internet.

Discuss how to construct WEB based surveys. Look at some currently existing sites for on-line research.

Project : Develop and implement a simply survey or experiment on Qualtrics

Give out problems with studies with internal validity problems for discussion during class the following week.

OR

2/16 Focus Groups Barbour, R. Doing Focus Groups. SAGE Publications.

2/23 Experimental and Quasi-experimental design

Brewer, M. B. Research Design and Issues of Validity. (pp. 3- 16). In Reis & Judd.

Smith, E. R. Research Design. (pp. 17-39). In Reis & Judd.

In class will go over short descriptions of studies for problems with internal validity.

A summary of the articles to be critiqued will be presented and class discussion will center on problems with the articles.

Regression artifacts.

3 Project: Article by Elizabeth Cohen will be distributed. Critique of Elizabeth Cohen due the following week. [BB]

Discuss issues in the logic and analysis of Quasi-experimental designs.

3/1 Experimental and Quasi-experimental design continued

West, S. G., Biesanz, J. C., & Pitts, S. C. Causal inference and generalization in field settings: Experimental and quasi-experimental designs. (Pp. 40-84). In Reis & Judd.

Chapter(s) from Cook and Campbell. [BB]

Critique of Elizabeth Cohen due this week.

3/8 Event sampling, Diary Studies.

Bolger, N., Davis, A., & Rafaeli, E. (2003). Diary Methods: Capturing Life as it is Lived. Annu. Rev. Psychol. 54, 579–616. [BB]

Fleeson, W. (2007). Studying Personality Processes: Explaining change in between- Persons Longitudinal and within-Person Multilevel Models. In R. W. Robins, R. C. Fraley, & R. F. Krueger (Eds). Handbook of Research Methods in Personality Psychology. (pp. 523-542). New York: Guilford Press. [BB]

Conner, T. S., Feldman Barrett, L., Tugade, M. M., & Tennen, H. (2007). Idiographic Personality: The Theory and Practice of Experience Sampling. In R. W. Robins, R. C. Fraley, & R. F. Krueger (Eds). Handbook of Research Methods in Personality Psychology. (pp. 79-96). New York: Guilford Press. [BB]

Nezlek, J. B. (2007) Multilevel Modeling in Personality Research. In R. W. Robins, R. C. Fraley, & R. F. Krueger (Eds). Handbook of Research Methods in Personality Psychology. (pp. 502-522). New York: Guilford Press. [BB]

Project: Develop and describe an event sampling study that can be done either as a diary study or with the use of PDAs, smartphones (e.g., iPhone).

3/15 SPRING BREAK

3/22 Meta-analysis

Johnson, B. T., & Eagly, A. H. Quantitative synthesis of social psychological research. (pp. 496-528). In Reis & Judd.

Michael Borenstein, Larry V. Hedges, Julian P. T. Higgins, Hannah R. Rothstein (2009). Introduction to Meta-Analysis. Wiley. ISBN: 978-0-470-05724-7

3/29 Meta-analysis continued

Project: Perform a simple meta-analysis and write it up.

4 4/5 Observational research

Bakeman, R. Behavioral observation and coding. (Pp. 138-159). In Reis & Judd.

Bakeman, R. Chapter on coding observational data. [BB]

Discuss examples of different kinds of coding systems: Bales, rating scales versus behavioral measures, micro versus macro level systems, etc. Relative advantages and disadvantages of each.

Project: Develop an observational coding system to test a particular question. Write-up a brief description that describes what you are trying to find out, what your coding system looks like and how your coding system will allow you to test your hypotheses. This should be turned in for the following week.

4/12 Observational research/ Content analysis

Pennebaker Articles on LIWC [BB]

Chapters from Neuendorf, K. A. (2002) The content analysis guidebook. Sage publications. [BB]

4/19 Content analysis continued

Chapters from Neuendorf, K. A. (2002) The content analysis guidebook. Sage publications. [BB]

Description of observational coding system due. Will discuss different students' examples as time permits. May also discuss different techniques for analyzing such data.

Project: Develop a content analysis coding system and write up a 3-4 page description of a study in which it will be used. This will be due next week and will be discussed in class.

4/26 Causal modeling, structural equation modeling Wegener, D. T. & Fabrigar, L. R. Analysis and design for Nonexperimental Data: Addressing Causal and Noncausal hypotheses. (pp. 412 – 450). In Reis & Judd.

Ullman, J. In Tabachnik & Fidell, Chap. 14, Structural equation modeling. [BB]

SCALE CONSTRUCTION PROJECT DUE Friday, the first week of Finals.

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