1. Course Description
a. Title of a Course
“Experimental psychology”
b. Pre-requisites
 Knowledge in psychology of cognition and psychology of personality
 Basic knowledge in English
c. Course Type (compulsory, elective, optional)
Compulsory
d. Abstract
Experimental psychology refers to applying experimental methods to the study of
behavior and the processes that underlie it. Experimental psychology is not a
special kind of psychology, it’s a common methodological approach, that is
applied in every field of psychology – from psychology of elementary sensory
processes to cross-cultural psychology.
This course is about how to make hypotheses for psychological study, how to plan
a study, how to carry out this study and how to interpret the results of a
psychological study. The course is primarily about experimental methods of
research, but quasi-experiment and correlational designs will also be studied.
2. Learning Objectives
The main goal of this course is to learn how psychological research is conducted;
how to make correct hypotheses of the study and how to choose a research method
according to hypotheses; how to choose an experimental plan; how to control
confounding variables; how to interpret results of the study and how to report these
results.
3. Learning Outcomes
Having taken this course you should:
 Have a knowledge of main concepts in experimental psychology
 Be able to formulate hypotheses of psychological study correctly
 Be able to choose a appropriate method for psychological research
 Be able to plan an experimental, quasi-experimental and correlational study
in psychology
 Be able to interpret the results of the study in accordance with the theoretical
prerequisites
4. Course Plan
№
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Topic
Methodological foundations of
psychological research
General principles of experiment in
psychology
Problem statement and hypotheses of
experiment
General principles of experimental
design
Pre-experimental and quasiexperimental designs
Experiment procedure and empirical
data collection
Correlational study in psychology
Data analysis in psychological
research
Presentation of research results
Total:
Total
hours
14
Contact hours
Lectures
Seminars
4
2
Independent
students work
8
16
3
4
9
14
2
4
8
30
6
6
18
20
5
4
11
24
2
4
18
14
14
4
4
2
2
8
8
16
162
2
32
4
32
10
98
5. Reading List
a. Required
1. Гудвин Дж. Исследование в психологии: методы и планирование. 3
СПб.: Питер, 2004. – 558 с.
2. Дружинин В.Н. Экспериментальная психология: учебник для вузов.
СПб.: Питер, 2006. – 320 с.
3. Корнилова Т.В. Экспериментальная психология: Теория и методы:
Учебник для вузов. М.: Аспект Пресс, 2003. – 381 с.
4. Мартин Д. Психологические эксперименты. Секреты механизмов
психики. СПб.: Прайм-Еврознак, 2004. – 480 с.
5. Солсо Р.Л., МакЛин М.К. Экспериментальная психология. СПб.:
Прайм-Еврознак, 2003. – 272 с.
b. Optional
1. Готтсданкер Р. Основы психологического эксперимента. М.: МГУ,
1982. С. 49-69
2. Кэмпбелл Д. Модели экспериментов в социальной психологии и
прикладных исследованиях. СПб., 1996.
6. Grading System
The formula for the cumulative rate is as follows:
Оcum. = 0,3×Оactivity + 0,3×Оessay + 0,4×Ohomework.
The activity includes attendance (with a coefficient 0,3) and participation in the
discussions at the seminar (with a coefficient 0,7). There are up to three additional
points for the activity that you can get for participating in the experiments. These
points are added to the raw scores of participation in the discussions at the seminar.
The formula for the total rate is as follows:
Оtotal = 0,6×Оcum + 0,4×Оexam
The cumulative rate is not rounded! Only the total rate is rounded.
Homework refers to preparing and conducting a psychological experiment in team
(4-6 persons). Requirements for the experiment include: novelty, statistical
reliability, validity.
This task should be carried out as a report, drawn up on the following plan:
1.
Title
2.
Abstract
3.
Introduction
4.
Method (participants, apparatus, stimuli, procedure, variables)
5.
Results
6.
Discussion
7.
References
Essay refers to writing a report to one of the following topics:
1. Experimental models in classical behaviorism and neobehaviorism.
2. Experimental models in classical Gestalt psychology.
3. Experimental models in cultural-historical psychology.
4. Unconventional experimental designs: experiments with small samples.
5. Specialties of planning and carrying out the cross-cultural research.
6. The formative experiment. The area of application and specialties of the
organization.
Requirements for the essay include:
 Correspondence of the text contents to the selected theme
 Clear and logical structure
 The quality of the analytical work done when writing the essay
 Using of literature corresponding to chosen topic
 Properly written text
 The relevance of the conclusion made by the author
 No spelling, punctuation, stylistic and factual errors
7. Guidelines for Knowledge Assessment
Essay assessment
Grade
«Excellent»: 10
«Very good»: 9, 8
«Good»: 7, 6
«Satisfactory»: 5, 4
«Fail»: 3, 2, 1
Criteria
The essay satisfies all the criteria.
Essay satisfies all the criteria, but there are minor errors in
essay design or some inaccurates in discussion.
7 – 6 criteria, 1 criteria made partially.
6 – 5 criteria, 2 criteria made partially
5 – 4 criteria, 3 criteria made partially.
4 – 4 criteria, 1 criteria made partially
3 – 3 criteria, regardless to criteria made partially
2 – 2 criteria, regardless to criteria made partially
1 – 1 criteria, regardless to criteria made partially
0 – essay is not accepted or is a plagiarism.
Essay should be submitted by the deadline. If essay is submitted in the one
week period after deadline, two points are removed. Otherwise essay is not
accepted.
Final exam assessment
The final exam is the multiple choice test with adaptive assessment.
8. Methods of Instruction
Lectures, seminars, group discussions
9. Special Equipment and Software Support (if required)
The course requires a laptop, projector, and acoustic systems.