Studying Human Behavior
Spring 2015
1
Course information
Class Schedule
Instructor
Office hours
Textbook
2
Section 02: M/Th 2nd–3rd periods (9:00–10:45 am)
Section 03: T/F 2nd–3rd periods (9:00–10:45 am)
Room B106
Alan Jern
Office: Moench AL–103
Email: jern@rose-hulman.edu
Thursdays 4th–6th periods, and by appointment
Cozby & Bates, Methods in Behavioral Research, 12th edition
(E-book acceptable)
Overview
This course is about how to rigorously study human behavior. We will focus on answering questions
about human psychology, but the methods we will use have natural applications to many areas,
including user interface design and market research. Moreover, the critical thinking skills that this
course emphasizes are broadly applicable, regardless of your eventual career. For example, here are
several basic questions you may have been faced with in the past that this course will teach you
how to approach.
• Does A cause C ?
• Which works better: A or B ?
• Should I believe claim X ?
Over the quarter, you will design and carry out your own psychology study. This will provide
you with first-hand experience with how (psychology) research is conducted, from conception to
design, implementation, analysis, communication, and evaluation.
1
3
Assessment
Component
Project
Assignments
Exam
Reading responses
Participation
Total
3.1
Weight
50%
20%
20%
5%
5%
100%
Research project (50%)
This course is centered around an independent research project. The project is broken into several
assignments throughout the quarter.
Component
Project ideas
Proposal
Design
Registration report
Presentation
Final report
Total
Weight
3%
5%
8%
9%
5%
20%
50%
You will work in small groups on your projects. You are encouraged and expected to collaborate
on every aspect of your projects except the writing assignments, which must be completed entirely
on your own. The final report is due Tuesday of finals week (5/26) by 12 pm.
3.2
Assignments (20%)
There will be several other assignments designed to give you practice with tools and concepts that
will help you with your project.
Component
Assignment 1: Experiment participation
Assignment 2: Literature review
Assignment 3: Ethics training
Lab 2
Lab 3
Lab 4
Total
3.3
Weight
2%
2%
1%
5%
5%
5%
20%
Exam (20%)
There will be a midterm exam covering material from the first half of the course, particularly
concepts about experimental design and data analysis.
2
3.4
Reading responses (5%)
On some class days, we will discuss original journal articles. To encourage you to come to class
prepared to discuss each article, you will be required to submit a response to each article before
class that day.
Reading responses need not be longer than two paragraphs. They may address any of the
following (unless otherwise specified on Moodle): criticism of an experiment, an idea about how to
extend the results of a study with a new experiment, an alternative interpretation of the results,
a connection from an article to something else from your studies or personal experience, or a
description of some aspect of an article that confused you and why.
3.5
Participation (5%)
This class would be boring for all of us without any interaction. Accordingly, I expect you to be
an active participant. In addition to asking and answering questions in class, there will be many
opportunities for you to participate, including in-class discussions and activities.
As long as you show good attendance and make a reasonable effort to contribute to the class
when appropriate, you will receive full participation credit. I will warn you in advance by email if
I feel your behavior is deficient in either of these respects. If you continue to make an inadequate
participation effort after a warning, you will receive a 0 for the participation component of your
grade. If you don’t hear from me at all, you can assume you are on track to receive full credit.
3.6
Final grade
Grades will be assigned as follows.
Percentage
≥ 90%
87–89%
80–86%
77–79%
70–76%
67–69%
60–66%
< 60%
4
4.1
Grade
A
B+
B
C+
C
D+
D
F
Course policies
Submitting assignments
Unless otherwise announced, all assignments will be submitted in hard copy in class.
4.2
Late assignments
For the entire course, you will have two free late days that can be used for anything EXCEPT
reading responses or the final project report. Assignments will be considered one day late if
they are submitted any time after the start of class on the due date. Assignments will be considered
3
two days late if they are submitted any time between 24 and 48 hours after the submission deadline.
You don’t need to notify me in advance if you plan to use one of your late days—I will keep track
of your late days and notify you by email when you have no late days remaining.
Any assignments submitted after your late days are used up will not be accepted. The purpose
for this policy is to ensure that I can grade and return your assignments as quickly as possible.
4.3
Academic integrity
Academic misconduct will be addressed according to the policies described in the Rose-Hulman
student handbook. Academic misconduct includes: (1) submitting work that is not your own; (2)
copying ideas, words, or graphics from any source without appropriate citation; (3) misrepresenting
your work or yourself (i.e., deliberately submitting the wrong assignment or lying to explain a late
assignment); (4) collaborating with other students when this is not permitted; and (5) submitting
the same work for credit in two courses without prior consent of both instructors. If you are unsure
whether something qualifies as academic misconduct, please check with me before engaging in the
behavior.
4
5
Course schedule
The following schedule lists topics, readings, and due dates for the whole quarter. The chapters
refer to the textbook. The days marked with L are days in which you must bring your
laptop with you to class.
I am teaching two sections of this course that meet on different days. Therefore, I have not
included dates on the schedule. Instead, I will refer to class numbers (1–20) throughout the quarter
when discussing things like due dates.
I don’t anticipate any major deviations from this schedule, but it is subject to change. Schedule
changes will be announced in class and will be posted online. I will give you plenty of notice when
such changes are made.
Week
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Class
1
2
Topic
Introduction
Critical thinking
3
Studying behavior
4
Research ethics
5
Lab 1
6
Experiment design
7
Lab 2
8
Experiment design
9
10
Lab 3
Data analysis
L
11
12
Lab 4
Generalization
L
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
Exam
Project time
Project time
Data collection
Data collection
Project time
Research issues
20
Presentations
L
L
Reading
Due
Ch 1
Shermer
Ch 4
Roy & Christenfeld
Hauser and Stapel
articles
Response
Project interests
Response
Assignment 1
Response
Assignment 2
Assignment 3
Project ideas
Response
L
L
Ch 5 & 8
Assefi & Garry
Craik & Tulving
Blair & Banaji
Ch 9 & 10
Markman et al.
Ch 12 & 13
Schnall et al.
Ch 14
Henrich, et al.
Response
Response
Project proposal
Lab 2
Response
Project design
Response
Lab 3
Lab 4
L
L
Registration report
Ioannidis
Simmons et al.
5
Response