Psychology 2820E-001
Research Methods and Statistical Analysis in Psychology
If there is a discrepancy between the outline posted below and the outline posted on the OWL course website, the latter shall prevail.
1.0 CALENDAR DESCRIPTION
An introduction to the design, conduct, and statistical analyses of psychological research. The intent is to provide students with knowledge of how to implement and evaluate research in both laboratory and applied settings. Design and statistical analysis will be taught in the context of specific studies and data sets from correlational, experimental, quasi-experimental and qualitative research. Written research projects will be required.
Antirequisites: Biology 2244A/B, Economics 2122A/B, 2222A/B, Geography 2210A/B, Health Sciences 3801A/B, MOS 2242A/B, Psychology 2800E, 2810, 2830A/B, 2840F/G, 2850A/B, 2851A/B, 2855F/G and 2856F/G, the former 2885, Social Work 2207A/B, the former 2205, Sociology 2205A/B, Statistical Sciences 2035, 2141A/B, 2143A/B, 2244A/B, 2858A/B and the former 2122A/B (and Statistical Sciences 2037A/B if taken before Fall 2010)
Antirequisites are courses that overlap sufficiently in content that only one can be taken for credit. So if this course has an antirequisite that you have previously taken, you will lose credit for the earlier course, regardless of the grade achieved in this one.
Prerequisites: One full course in mathematics plus at least 60% in a 1000-level Psychology course. To fulfill the mathematics requirement, you must complete a full course equivalent by taking 1.0 courses from among the following courses: Applied Mathematics 1201A/B or the former Calculus 1201A/B, Mathematics 0110A/B, 1120A/B, 1225A/B, 1228A/B, 1229A/B, 1600A/B, Calculus 1000A/B, 1100A/B, 1301A/B, 1500A/B, 1501A/B, the former Linear Algebra 1600A/B, Statistical Sciences 1024A/B, the former Mathematics 030 and 031.
If Mathematics 0110A/B is selected, then either Statistical Sciences 1024A/B or Mathematics 1228A/B must be taken. The combination of Mathematics 1228A/B and Statistical Sciences 1024A/B is strongly recommended.
2 lecture hours, 2 laboratory/tutorial hours, 1.0 course
Unless you have either the requisites for this course or written special permission from your Dean to enroll in it, you may be removed from this course and it will be deleted from your record. This decision may not be appealed. You will receive no adjustment to your fees in the event that you are dropped from a course for failing to have the necessary prerequisites.
2.0 COURSE INFORMATION
Instructors:
Joshua D. Wright, Ph.D. candidate (Social Psychology)
Office: SSC6325
Email: jwrig42@uwo.ca
Kabir Daljeet, Ph.D. candidate (I/O Psychology)
Office: SSC 8434
Email: kdaljeet@uwo.ca
Time and Location of Classes: 7:00-10:00PM Tuesdays & Thursdays in SSC2020
Course Website:
There is an OWL site for this course. Important course information will be posted at the website, and this is the main method of communicating information to students.
If you or someone you know is experiencing distress, there are several resources here at Western to assist you. Please visit: http://www.uwo.ca/uwocom/mentalhealth/ for more information on these resources and on mental health.
Please contact the course instructor if you require material in an alternate format or if you require any other arrangements to make this course more accessible to you. You may also wish to contact Services for Students with Disabilities (SSD) at 519-661-2111 ext 82147 for any specific question regarding an accommodation.
3.0 TEXTBOOK
There is no textbook required for this course. All course content necessary for assignments and exams will be provided in lectures. If you want a textbook for your own purposes, the following is recommended:
Haslam, S.A. & McGarty, C. (2014). Research methods and statistics in psychology (2nd). Sage: London, U.K.
You will need a basic calculator for this course.
4.0 COURSE OBJECTIVES
In this course, we will discuss several of the methods used to conduct research in psychology and how to analyze and report data. We will discuss the generation of research ideas, ethical aspects of research, the philosophy of science, experimental design, issues of validity and reliability, and how to form the sample to be used in the research. Additionally, we will examine multiple common analytic procedures for testing hypotheses within each design. These procedures will be taught with the aid of specific examples using real data in class. You will gain first-hand experience in the steps involved in designing and conducting a research project and in writing a journal style paper.
4.1 STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES
Students will learn how to design studies, learn how to analyze data, and learn how to write
articles suitable for peer-reviewed journals.
5.0 EVALUATION
There will 200 total possible marks for the entire course.
There are three major components in this course: a final research paper and two exams. There are eight smaller assignments throughout the course meant to develop your research and statistical skills, and to prepare you for the paper and the exams.
Research Paper (25%)-Due July 26
Midterm Exam (15%)-In class on June 26
Final Exam (20%)-Scheduled during the final exam period
8 Assignments (40%)-deadlines are noted in the lecture schedule
PLEASE NOTE: Because this is an essay course, as per Senate Regulations (http://www.westerncalendar.uwo.ca/2017/pg108.html), you must pass the essay component to pass the course. That is, the average mark for your written assignments must be at least 50%.
Although the Psychology Department does not require instructors to adjust their course grades to conform to specific targets, the expectation is that course marks will be distributed around the following averages:
70% 1000-level and 2000-level courses
72% 2190-2990 level courses
75% 3000-level courses
80% 4000-level courses
The Psychology Department follows Western's grading guidelines, which are as follows (see http://www.uwo.ca/univsec/pdf/academic_policies/general/grades_undergrad.pdf):
A+ 90-100 One could scarcely expect better from a student at this level
A 80-89 Superior work that is clearly above average
B 70-79 Good work, meeting all requirements, and eminently satisfactory
C 60-69 Competent work, meeting requirements
D 50-59 Fair work, minimally acceptable
F below 50 Fail
6.0 TEST AND EXAMINATION SCHEDULE
There are two exams in the course. The midterm will take place in class on June 26th and the final exam will take place during the final exam period (July 30-31, 2018).
7.0 CLASS SCHEDULE
**Readings are noted below each lecture. Where readings are noted, the reading should be read prior to coming to class. Readings are tentative and may be changed the week before. You will be notified of all such changes as they occur***
May 8 –Tuesday (Wright)
Lecture 1: Philosophy of Science and Thinking Critically About Research
Readings:
Furguson, C.J. (2015). “Everybody knows psychology is not a real science”: Public perceptions of psychology and how we can improve our relationship with policymakers, the scientific community, and the general public. American Psychologist, 70(6), 527-542. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0039405
May 10-Thursday (Wright)
Lecture 2: The Replication Crisis, QRP’s, and Open Science + Tutorial on APA Style
Readings:
Open Science Collaboration (2015). Estimating the reproducibility of science. Science, 349(6251), aac4716. doi: 10.1126/science.aac4716 (Only need to read the summary)
Gilbert, D.T., King, G., Pettigrew, S., & Wilson, T.D. (2016). Comment on “Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science. Science, 351(6277), 1037. doi: 10.1126/science.aad7243
Assignment # 1-APA Style (Due May 17)
May 15 -Tuesday (Daljeet)
Lecture 3: Introduction to Research Methods
May 17-Thursday (Wright)
Lecture 4: Descriptive Statistics, Graphing, and Standardizing Variables
Assignment # 2 (Due May 24)
May 22-Tuesday (Wright)
Lecture 5: Experimental Design
May 24-Thursday (Daljeet)
Lecture 6: Searching the Literature + Writing Tutorial (Intro)
Assignment # 3: Written Introduction (Due June 5)
May 29-Tuesday (Wright)
Lecture 7: Introduction to Statistical Inference and Hypothesis Testing: The z-test and one-sample t-test
Reading:
Cohen, J. (1990). Things I have learned (so far). American Psychologist, 45(12), 1304-1312. doi: 10.1037/0003-066X.45.12.1304
Ronald L. Wasserstein & Nicole A. Lazar (2016) The ASA's statement on p-values: Context, process, and purpose, The American Statistician, 70(2), 129-133, doi: 10.1080/00031305.2016.1154108
May 31-Thursday (Wright)
Lecture 8: Examining Differences Between Means of Independent Groups: Independent T-test
Assignment # 4 (Due June 7)
June 5-Tuesday (Daljeet)
Research Ethics + Writing Tutorial (Methods and Results)
Peer Review of Assignment # 3: Introductions (Assignment # 3 Due June 7)
June 7-Thursday (Daljeet)
Final Written Introduction Due
Correlation & Causation
Assignment # 5- Methods and results write-up with correlational data (Due June 14)
***JUNE 11th IS THE LAST DAY TO DROP THIS COURSE
June 12-Tuesday (Daljeet)
Sampling Methods & Survey Design
Introducing Final Paper (Draft of Intro/Method/Result by June 28; Final Paper due July 26)
June 14-Thursday (Daljeet)
Introduction to Psychometrics
June 19-Tuesday (Daljeet)
Introduction to Regression
Assignment # 6 (Due June 28)
June 21-Thursday (Daljeet)
Introduction to Mediation and Moderation
June 26-Tuesday
Midterm Exam: Material Covered Through June 21st
June 28-Thursday
Discussion Tutorial + Writing Workshop
July 3-Tuesday (Wright)
ANOVA in independent group designs + pairwise comparisons
Assignment # 7 (Due July 10)
July 5-Thursday (Wright)
Repeated Measures and Paired t-test
July 10-Tuesday (Wright)
ANOVA in repeated measures designs
Assignment # 8 (Due July 17)
July 12-Thursday (Wright)
Equivalence Testing and Calculating Power in Basic Designs
Reading:
Lakens, D. (2017). Equivalence tests: a practical primer for t tests, correlations, and meta-analyses. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 8(4), 355-362.
Lakens, D. (2013). Calculating and reporting effect sizes to facilitate cumulative science: a practical primer for t-tests and ANOVAs. Frontiers in Psychology, 4, 863. doi: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00863
July 17-Tuesday (Wright)
Considerations for Field Research + Introducing Qualitative Research
July 19-Thursday (Wright)
Factorial ANOVA
July 24-Tuesday (Daljeet)
Chi-Square and Distribution Free Tests
July 26
Review
EXAMS July 30-31
The registrar will schedule the final exam. It will be 3 hours long. It will be cumulative over the semester but will emphasize material since the midterm exam.
RESEARCH PROJECT DETAILS
You are to write a paper in the style of a manuscript being prepared for submission to an academic journal in psychology. You are to write this manuscript as though you have completed a study (even though you have not). You will be provided with data from the course instructors that contain a variety of variables. You will chose a subset of these variables and write a study as though you collected and analyzed these data yourselves.
Length & Style: Your writing style and formatting should follow APA standards (see the most recent APA publication manual), but note that an abstract is not required. Tables, figures, and appendices should be placed after the reference section as per APA format for submitted manuscripts.
The essay should be no fewer than 2500 words and no more than 3000 words (not counting title page, reference list, tables, figures, and appendices). Please carefully check the length of your essay and resist the temptation to exceed the 3000-word limit -- all the text after the 3000th word will not be graded as part of your essay.
*Additional information will be handed out in class.
**For examples you can view brief reports at Personality and Individual Differences and Social Psychology, which are between 2500 and 3000 words.
***All papers will be turned in as a hard copy and through Turnitin on OWL.8.0 STATEMENT ON ACADEMIC OFFENCES
Students are responsible for understanding the nature and avoiding the occurrence of plagiarism and other scholastic offenses. Plagiarism and cheating are considered very serious offenses because they undermine the integrity of research and education. Actions constituting a scholastic offense are described at the following link: http://www.uwo.ca/univsec/pdf/academic_policies/appeals/scholastic_discipline_undergrad.pdf
As of Sept. 1, 2009, the Department of Psychology will take the following steps to detect scholastic offenses. All multiple-choice tests and exams will be checked for similarities in the pattern of responses using reliable software, and records will be made of student seating locations in all tests and exams. All written assignments will be submitted to TurnItIn, a service designed to detect and deter plagiarism by comparing written material to over 5 billion pages of content located on the Internet or in TurnItIn’s databases. All papers submitted for such checking will be included as source documents in the reference database for the purpose of detecting plagiarism of papers subsequently submitted to the system. Use of the service is subject to the licensing agreement, currently between Western and Turnitin.com http://www.turnitin.com
Possible penalties for a scholastic offense include failure of the assignment, failure of the course, suspension from the University, and expulsion from the University.
9.0 POLICY ON ACCOMMODATION FOR MEDICAL ILLNESS
Western’s policy on Accommodation for Medical Illness can be found at:
http://westerncalendar.uwo.ca/PolicyPages.cfm?Command=showCategory&PolicyCategoryID=1&SelectedCalendar=Live&ArchiveID=#Page_12
Students must see the Academic Counsellor and submit all required documentation in order to be approved for certain accommodation:
http://counselling.ssc.uwo.ca/procedures/medical_accommodation.html
10.0 OTHER INFORMATION
Office of the Registrar web site: http://registrar.uwo.ca
Student Development Services web site: http://www.sdc.uwo.ca
Please see the Psychology Undergraduate web site for information on the following:
http://psychology.uwo.ca/undergraduate/student_responsibilities/index.html
- Policy on Cheating and Academic Misconduct
- Procedures for Appealing Academic Evaluations
- Policy on Attendance
- Policy Regarding Makeup Exams and Extensions of Deadlines
- Policy for Assignments
- Short Absences
- Extended Absences
- Documentation
- Academic Concerns
- 2018 Calendar References
No electronic devices, including cell phones and smart watches, will be allowed during exams.
