Psych 3050
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RESEARCH METHODS
PSYC 3050
Instructor:
Office:
Phone:
Email:
Office Hours:
Anne P. DePrince, Ph.D.
340 Frontier Hall
303-871-2939
adeprinc@du.edu
Mon 11-12; Thurs 11-12
CRN 2322
Winter 2003
Teaching Assistant:
Office:
Phone:
Email:
Office Hours:
Kendall McCarley
42 Frontier Hall
303-871-4375
kmccarle@du.edu
TBA
COURSE DESCRIPTION AND INFORMATION
Is research objective? How do I know what good research is?
I’m interested in studying effects of time of day on mood; how do I do this?
Should I believe the research I read in the magazines at the grocery store?
How can I become a researcher?
Course Objectives/Content:
This course is designed to provide you with a basic understanding of research methods and research
design in contemporary psychological research. The underlying principles and issues covered will be
generalizable to scientific research conducted in many related disciplines (e.g., sociology, medicine).
An even more general goal is to teach logic and critical analysis skills that will allow you to be an
informed consumer of research findings and claims -- and to get you excited about research!
We will cover the major issues in conducting psychological research, discussing how to formulate a
research question, design a study, conduct the study, analyze data, interpret findings, communicate the
results, and critique research; these topics will be covered in the text and lectures. In addition, you will
engage in activities that will require the practical application of what you have learned.
Course Prerequisites:
SOCS 1710 or equivalent and 2300 or equivalent are prerequisites for this course. I will assume that
you have a working knowledge of statistics.
Laptops:
This course will rely heavily on in-class demonstrations and activities. You are expected to attend all
class meetings. Further, you are expected to bring a laptop to class with an Ethernet cable. If you are
unable to bring a laptop, please see me immediately to make other arrangements. We will be relying
on two primary sources for in-class experiments, one of which requires you to download software.
Please download MemCog software and manual at
http://www.du.edu/psychology/methods/experiments/index.html. You will need to be on-line during
class in order to complete experiments and have your data recorded for analysis.
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Textbooks:
Textbooks are available at the DU Bookstore
1. Martin, D.M. (2000). Doing Psychology Experiments. Belmont: Wadsworth/Thomson
Learning. REQUIRED TEXT
2. Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (5th edition) OPTIONAL
TEXT
Course Requirements and Grading
Your grade in this course will be based on your performance on homework, labs, quizzes, discussion
questions, and the final paper. You are expected to have completed the readings by date assigned on
the syllabus.
Grades
Grades will be determined according to the following point breakdown:
Homework (6 @ 25)
150
Labs (10 @ 10)
100
Discussion question (10@3)
30
Quizzes (9 @ 25)
225
Final Paper
120
______________________________
Total Points
625
A range: 90-100% of points; B range 80-89%; C range 70-79%; D range 60-69%; F below 60%. This
course will not be graded on a curve.
Quizzes.
Quizzes make up approximately 35% of your grade. You will have weekly quizzes as indicated on the
syllabus. Each quiz includes the readings assigned through the day of the quiz, as well as lecture
material (excluding the lecture for the day of the quiz). Make-up quizzes will not be allowed except
in cases of illness with a note from a doctor or advance notice of a required absence.
Discussion questions.
One discussion question/comment per week must be submitted to the Blackboard Discussion Board for
this course by 9:00 a.m. on Thursday. Questions/comments must pertain directly to the reading
assigned for that week and must show that you have actively engaged with the material. You are
expected to read the questions submitted by your peers. Quiz questions may be drawn from class
discussion questions – so the better the questions you write, the more likely they will be included in
quizzes and the more likely you will know quiz questions ahead of time! Your discussion questions
will be graded based on how well you integrated the readings and engaged in critical thinking.
Discussion questions are worth 3 points per week. Questions received after 9:00 a.m. on Thursdays
will receive 0 points.
Discussion questions are to be posted to the course web site. To do so, go to the class web site. Click
on the Discussion Board option on the left side of the screen. You will see a list of Discussion Forums
Psych 3050
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organized by week. Click on the week for which you are posting the question. You can post questions
in two ways. First, you can click on “Start a New Thread” or you can reply to a question that was
previously posted by a classmate. To reply to a previous post, click on an existing message. At the
bottom of the screen, there is a place for you to click on reply.
You are welcome and encouraged to respond to questions and points raised by your peers (though you
must always post at least one question from the readings). Please keep in mind that the same level of
respect and professionalism required during in-person communications in class is expected by email.
Labs
Labs are activities that involve in-class or take-home assignments; labs make up 16% of your grade.
For in-class labs, you will turn in responses to the lab at the end of class. Take-home labs will be due
at the time indicated when the lab is assigned; late labs will not be accepted. Labs are not routinely
announced ahead of time and you must be in class to receive credit for the assignment.
Homework
Assignments will be graded on both content and writing. All written assignments must be typed and
consistent with the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (5th edition).
Homework must be submitted in class at 9:00 a.m. on the day that it is due. Late papers will incur a
10% penalty for every day late (turned in late on the day due counts as an extra day). If a paper is due
on Friday and is turned in Monday morning, the paper will be considered two days late (Sat. and Sun.).
Homework assignments 1-5 are related to a single experiment for which you will develop the
components of an APA manuscript. You will choose one of five experiments on which to focus for
these assignments. The experiments you can choose from are described below. Please choose a topic
that is of interest to you by 1/14.
Experiment
Self-Reference
Perception of Gender
Lexical Decision
Reaction Time-Color
Word Recognition
Brief Description
This experiment examines recognition of words, with an emphasis on whether words that
are related to the self are better recognized than other words.
This study explores the role that facial features may play in cueing gender.
This experiment judgments about whether strings of letters are actual words.
This experiment examines whether reaction times are reliably different for reaction time
tasks that require slightly different decisions.
This experiment examines word recognition and hemispheric specialization of the brain.
Final Paper and Research Proposal Meeting. Your final paper will allow you to identify a
research question and propose how you would answer that question. You will submit a research
proposal as an APA manuscript, complete with an Abstract, Introduction, Proposed Methods, Proposed
Data Analysis, Discussion, and References. The final paper is due at the beginning of the final exam
period. More details on this assignment to follow! You are required to meet with either the instructor
or the teaching assistant by the 5th week of the term to discuss your research proposal topic for your
final paper.
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Course Web Site:
The web site for this course was constructed using "BlackBoard CourseInfo" software. This allows the
web site to be extensive and interactive. On the web site, you will find general announcements for the
class, all documents for the course (including this syllabus), descriptions of assignments, on-line
discussions and links to relevant web sites. This web site will be a very useful tool for you in learning
the material for this class and in further exploring topics you find interesting.
You must enroll for the Research Methods PSYC 3050 course. To do so, go to the Blackboard website
at http://blackboard.du.edu/. Using the course catalog, find the courses listed for Winter 2003 under
psychology. You will see a link to Research Methods Psych 3050; at the course website, click Enroll
on the left side of the screen and follow the directions to enroll yourself in the course. You must enroll
in this course by Thursday 1/9.
Extra Credit
You may earn extra credit for the course by participating in ongoing research in the DU Psychology
Department. You may earn up to 4 chits of extra credit. Each chit is worth 4 points. No other extra
credit opportunities will be allowed.
Academic Honesty
All work submitted in this course must be your own and produced exclusively for this course. The use
of sources (ideas, quotations, paraphrases) must be properly acknowledged and documented. For the
consequences of academic dishonesty, refer to the University of Denver website on Academic Integrity
(http://www.du.edu/honorcode/studentprocedure.htm). Violations will be taken seriously. If you are in
doubt regarding any aspect of these issues as they pertain to this course, please consult with the
instructor before you complete any relevant requirements of the course.
Students with Disabilities
If you have a documented disability and anticipate needing accommodations in this course, please
make arrangements to meet with the instructor soon. Also please request that the Disability Services
Program send a letter verifying your disability [contact the Disability Services Program (DSP) at 303871-2372 or via http://www.du.edu/car/uap/].
** Items on this syllabus are subject to change. Changes will be announced in class and on email.
It is your responsibility to keep up to date on assignment due dates, as well as changes in the syllabus.
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READINGS AND ASSIGNMENTS
Date
1/7
1/9
1/14
Martin 3
Martin 13
1/16
Martin 6
1/21
1/23
Martin 4
Martin 1
1/28
1/30
2/4
2/11
Martin 2
Martin pp. 215-227
Martin 7
Keenan “Levels of
Processing”
Martin 8
Keenan “Recall
Recognition”
Martin 9
2/13
Appendix A
2/18
2/20
Appendix A
Martin 12
2/25
2/27
Martin, pp. 196-207
Martin, pp. 207-215
Inferential statistics
Data analysis and
reporting results
Quasi-experimental design
Small n design
3/4
3/6
Review Martin 12
Martin 5
Interpreting data
Evaluating research
9:00 a.m.
Evaluating research
Advances in Science
No Exam
2/6
3/11
3/13
3/18
Reading
Topic
Explaining behavior
Developing research ideas
Developing research ideas
& APA Style
Library research
**Meeting in Library
Ethics
Measurement &
observation
Observational research
Correlational research
Experimental research
overview
Experimental research
continued
Experimental research
continued
Describing data
Work Due
Quiz
Choose Homework topic
Quiz
HW 1 Due
Quiz
HW 2 Introduction Due
Quiz
Quiz
HW 3 Methods Due
Quiz
Quiz
HW 4 Results Due
Quiz
HW 5 Discussion Due
HW6 Due
Quiz
Final Paper Due at 9:00
a.m.