Introduction to Psychology Course Development Grant
(2013)
Lorna Hernandez Jarvis, PI
Mary Inman, Collaborator
ABSTRACT
We would like to redesign the 1-credit Introduction to Psychology Projects course to be
an online course. The course introduces students to research in social sciences in
particular in psychology. The entire course involves engagement with research. Three
main research projects are conducted, and observation project, a survey/correlational
research project, and an experiment. Students engage in developing hypotheses,
operational definitions of variables, data collection, data analysis interpretation, and
writing research reports. We would like to redesign all these projects so that they can be
done on line. The course will serve many students (potentially as many as 50-60 per year)
who come to Hope College with psychology AP credit but need the hands-on quantitative
research experience required in the General Education program and in the Psychology
major. It will also serve students who transfer in 3 credits of introduction to psychology
course taken at other institutions. The course will be taught in the summer as an online
course. Members of the psychology department will rotate teaching it. Teaching this
course on line during the summer allows members of the psychology department to teach
this course without having to teach an overload during the academic year. The course has
been taught during the academic year for the past 5 years by three faculty members as an
overload. This model is no longer sustainable. Thus, the department supports the idea of
re-designing this course as an online summer course.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
A high number of incoming students to Hope College have earned 3 credits in
psychology/social science by taking AP psychology while in high school. Also a
considerable number of students take introduction to psychology at other institutions that
transfer to Hope as a 3 credit course. This situation has created several problems. First,
our general education social science requirement includes a quantitative laboratory
experience in social sciences. This is met in our curriculum by taking a 4 credit course
that includes a laboratory component in psychology, communications, or sociology.
These students then do not receive as part of their general education hands-on exposure to
research in the social sciences. Students coming in with psychology AP credit then are
not engaged in a quantitative/laboratory experience in social sciences. Since the social
science general education requirement involves completing 6 credits in social science,
and courses at Hope are either 2 or 4 credits, completing AP credit made it difficult for
them to obtain the 6 credits, and often were either short and requesting a waiver for the
remaining credit or taking 7 or 8 credits in social science, some with a lab experience,
some without one. Secondly, for those students who wish to become psychology majors
they are placed at a disadvantage in other courses since they do not have the hands-on
research experience that students who take the course at Hope have. The department
addressed these problems by developing a 1 credit course (PSY 105) title “Introduction to
Psychology Projects”. The course is a laboratory course in which students engage in
conducting three research projects, a naturalistic observation project, a
survey/correlational study and an experiment. They are also engaged in several small inclass research activities in class. The course is designed to be hands-on. Students learned
to pose scientific questions and hypothesis, develop materials to test the hypothesis,
collect data, learn basic data analysis, and write three reports.
After teaching this course for over 5 years it has become clear that teaching this course is
difficult for the department because it must be taught as an overload. This is problematic
for faculty members who are also active researchers and heavily involved in their
research agenda during the academic year. As a result the course was not offered during
the spring of 2013 and will not be offered in the fall 2013. Thus, the department has been
considering developing this course as an online course that could be taught during
summers. Ideally this course could be taught by anyone in the department who is
interested in teaching during the summer. To start with Dr. Mary Inman and Dr. Lorna
Hernandez Jarvis are committing themselves to sharing the teaching of this course in the
foreseeable future. Thus, we are applying for this grant to support the
development/redesign of this course to be an online 1 credit course.
Research Description
The course goals are:
1. To expose students to three major scientific methodologies used in psychology
and social science research, observational research, survey/correlational research,
and experimentation.
2. To help students understand the development of psychological knowledge is
3. To help students experience first hand what is involved in the creation of new
knowledge
4. To help students learn that empirical questions in social science require different
approaches and methods, and to learn when is appropriate to use each of the three
primary methods used in psychology.
5. To expose students to the complexities and excitement of conducting research.
Three main research projects are required in this course. The first one is an observation
project. The second project involves survey/correlational methodology. The third and
final project is a simple experiment. The results of these projects are disseminated
internally. One of the three projects can be turned into a power point poster that can then
be posted in the website for this course. Students will be able to teach and learn from
other students. Some of these projects can also be highlighted in the department’s web
site.
Observational project
The research goal is to complete an observation of a particular behavior that will result in
a detailed description of the behavior.
The educational goals of this project are to introduce students to:
1. The process of developing research questions and testable hypotheses.
2. The importance of operational definitions of variables involved in the study.
3. The importance of clarity in the measures and measurement scales
4. The concepts of reliability (inter-rater reliability in particular) and validity.
5. Conduct observation in objective way avoiding biases. That is, simply conduct
objective observations.
6. Ethical concerns with this methodology
Survey/Correlational Research Project
The research goal of this project is to establish whether several variables are related to
each other and the nature of that relationship. Students involved in the course decide on
the topic of the project (we encourage engaging with current local or national problems);
they develop the survey, collect data, analyze the data and write a brief report on the
nature of the relationship between the variables tested.
The educational objectives are for students to learn:
1. The process of developing research questions and hypotheses that can be
addressed through survey research
2. How to write effective survey questions
3. To define the measurement scale appropriate for the questions
4. What a correlation is and how to identify one and how to appropriately describe
it.
5. Ethical considerations when using this method.
Experiment Project
The research goal of this project is to conduct a replication of a well known
psychological finding. The educational goals are to introduce students to:
1. How to identify research questions and hypotheses testable by experimental
methods.
2. The importance of control variables
3.
4.
5.
6.
Clear definitions of dependent and independent variables
Interpretation of simple statistical data analysis
The process of writing an experimental report using APA guidelines.
The ethical issues involved in this method.
Assessment plan
The course will use the pre and post test CURE assessment instrument. Many of the items
on that assessment will directly measure some of the main goals of this course. In
particular we are interested in determining whether students report learning gains on how
knowledge is constructed in psychology, and understanding the research process in this
field. We will also be able to learn how/whether the course helps students learn how
scientists work on real problems and the ethical concerns of conducting psychological
research. Additionally we will be able to measure whether students report learning gains,
on some important research skills such learning to design research project, collect data,
and writing of research reports. We will also be interested on some of the questions
included in CURE about attitudes toward science. In particular, whether they learn about
the importance of evidence, and understanding the type of evidence they encounter, and
the appropriate use of statistics.
We will also include a pre-post course knowledge test on basic concepts of research
methodology (e.g. independent and dependent variable, definition of hypothesis,
appropriateness of research methods to specific questions, basic data analysis
terminology) to assess students learning gains on these basic concepts.
Resources Needed
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Stipends for two professors for 4 weeks during the 2013ummer. Each professor
will develop one or two full observation projects, 1-2 survey projects, and 1-2
experiments, including web based materials to conduct them. The outcome after 4
weeks of work will be 2-4 observational projects, 2-4 survey project and 2-4
experiments that could be used in the course. These projects can then be rotated
every time the course is taught. New experiments and observations projects can
be developed in the future as well.
Stipend for one week in June of 2014 so the professor teaching the course in
May 2014 can conduct data analysis on CURE assessment data, and write a report
to be submitted to director of HHMI grant.
Stipend for student assistants to work on developing some of the web-based
materials needed for the course in the summer of 2013. The students will work a
total of 80 hours during summer of 2013. We will also need student assistants
during the academic year (80 hours for the AY) to revise and post materials in the
course website and to test the different projects and activities.
Participants that will allow us to videotape them for use in the observational
projects
Software to design experiments that can be posted in the moodle site for the
course.
Project Timeline
July 30, 2013 Completion of the three main web-based projects for the course (at least 6
projects, 2 observations, 2 surveys, and 2 experiments).
February, 2014 Course projects completely tested and ready for use in course website.
April 2014
All other materials for the course completed and posted in course website
May 2014
Course offered on line for May Term 2014 taught by Lorna Hernandez
Jarvis
Assessment data analyzed and grant report completed including full
assessment analysis, submitted to Cathy Mader, director of HHMI grant at
Hope College
June 2014