INSTRUCTORS

REQUIRED TEXTS  

Aaron, A., & Aron, E. (2006). Statistics for psychology (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.  

American Psychological Association. (2001). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (5th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.

Schweigert, W.A. (2003). Research methods in psychology: A handbook. Long Grove, IL: Waveland.

Green, S. & Salkind, N. (2005). Using SPSS for Windows and Macintosh: Analyzing and understanding data (5th Edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.

Important Links

The Best "How to do SPSS"

WHY THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PSYCH COURSE YOU WILL TAKE

There is a reason why this course is required of all psych majors -- the material covered in this course is essential to the understanding of all psychology. The theories you read about in your psych books are based on analyzed data from controlled studies (except for Freud's, and he is ridiculed to this day). So, statistics are a tools that we psychologists use to help support or disconfirm theories. You, as a budding psychologist, need to be familiar with these tools so that you can evaluate the studies of others and determine whether their conclusions are valid given their data analyses.

There are 2 main learning objectives for this course:

1.) To teach you how do statistical analyses and know when to use the appropriate analysis. And yes, it's true -- you will work harder in this course than any other course. We have a lot of assignments for this course, because you can only learn stats by doing stats. You can't afford to get behind at any time in this course. The assignments are one way to make sure you don't get behind. If you do find yourself getting lost, don't wait around thinking that you'll "get it" eventually -- come see us.

2.) To teach you the scientific method. This involves coming up with a question, designing an empirical study to answer your question, collecting data, analyzing that data, and coming to some conclusion. To this end, you will design your own empirical study addressing your question and will collect and analyze the data.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

You will be required to check your email on a regular basis for schedule updates and assignments.

1. Quizzes
There will a quiz on Fridays -- every week. This quiz will be based on the material covered both in class and the reading assigned for  that week. The purpose of the quizzes is to make sure that you keep up with the material and avoid falling behind.

NOTE: We WILL have a quiz the Friday before Thanksgiving break. Leaving to go home that Friday is NOT an excuse to miss the quiz, and you WILL get a zero on the quiz if you miss it.

Weekly Stats Problem: In addition to the weekly quizzes, we will provide an optional stats problem for students to work on each week. This problem (taken from the back of the book) will reinforce concepts and computations covered in lecture and will better prepare students for the quiz that week. The answers to these problems are listed in the back of the book, and the stats TA (Amy) will also have worked out this problem, giving you two sources to confirm that you have completed the problem correctly. Please take advantage of this opportunity -- stats is a skill like any other: practice makes perfect.

2. Laboratory Reports
Lab will meet on Thursdays. The Research Design and Analysis Lab focuses on building practical skills that are necessary to consume and contribute to psychological science. Journal Reports and Lab Reports will be the primary mechanisms through which these skills will be generated and refined. Click here to view the Lab Syllabus, including detailed instructions for Journal Reports and Lab Reports.

3. Journal Reports

The write up is to be handed in each Monday at the START of class. See link above for details.

4. Research Project
There is no final exam. However, you and a partner will together conduct an original empirical study and analyze the data. Together you two will write it up in the format of the style published by the American Psychological Association (APA). For information see your APA Manual.

You and your partner will be assigned a topic from a list (see below) of possible research questions or issues and one or two original source articles. You two will work on the project. You should note that the studies MUST have the following characteristics: (1) human participants who are not at risk must be used; (2)The final design of your study must include at least two independent or predictor variables. (3) Prior to actual data collection, the design must be approved by the course professors (and the University Human Subjects Committee). You and your partner will present a poster proposal to the class at midterm (see below) during Parent's Weekend. (4) You and your partner will deliver a short PowerPoint presentation of your project at the end of the semester during class. (5) Lastly, you will turn in a written report of your study during exam week. Your written report must be read by another member of the class (not your partner) before it is handed in to us. Your reader will check for clarity and the mechanical aspects of APA style. Make sure you are aware of the proper way to cite sources and know what plagiarism is.

Research Topics 

Partner List

Word Norms: for those of you testing memory for words

How to write the results section for ANOVA

Check the Schedule carefully, because subsections of your final report have deadlines. Successfully meeting those deadlines is expected and will figure into your final grade. FOR YOUR FINAL PROJECT, KEEP ALL YOUR WRITING AND DATA ANALYSES ON FILE OR DISKETTE, BECAUSE YOU ARE LIKELY TO BE DOING SUBSTANTIAL AMOUNTS OF RE-WRITING AND RE-ANALYSIS.


Completion of the project and its write up are a course requirement, so failure to complete this aspect of the course will result in a grade of F for the course.


6. Attendance
Regular attendance is expected, and, as noted above, it is mandatory on lab days. We expect you to prepare for each class, and we expect intelligent class participation.


Teaching Assistants
Several psychology majors will assist you in learning this term. They will help in the laboratory, and they will be doing some grading of quizzes, problems sets, and journal reports. They will hold office hours during the week to answer questions. You can find them in either the psyc comupter lab (P225) or in the student offices (P218) around the corner from the lab . The assistants are:

GRADING: Your grade will reflect your performance on the above requirements. The breakdown is as follows
 

Late Work Policy

All Late work will receive 10% per day reduction (weekends included). Students who have conflicts associated with official university activities (concerts, athletic contests, and the like) should arrange to hand in material early.

Honor System

We assume that all work done in this course, unless explicitly indicated otherwise by us, will be the student's own work. A pledge should appear on all work handed in; however, we will assume all work is pledged.

Students needing Accomodation

If you are a student requiring accomodation on assignments, exams, etc. Please bring me your accomodation form before the first assignment/exam.